Video Generation
Galaksija did not have a dedicated video circuitry. Inspired by the CDP 1802 application book, its Z80A CPU was directly responsible for modulating the monochrome video signal with a little help of a shift register. Galaksija's CPU would write one byte to the shift register, which would, in turn, serialize its 8 bits one by one to the video output.
Since Galaksija had little RAM, a portion of it was taken not to store information for each pixel separately but character codes. CPU then had to look up character definitions in its character definitions ROM to find the values to send to the shift register.
This was standard operation available in Galaksija's ROM. Some software, however, reportedly took the responsibility for driving the shift register (and thus generating video) and was able to use various tricks to achieve what appears as high-resolution graphics, such as with user defined graphic characters.
It was thus possible for Galaksija with sufficient RAM upgrade (having at least 6144 bytes available for video memory) to achieve 256x208 graphics without any specialized circuitry. Other resolutions were also possible while maintaining only pixel width, by changing the amount of the active area of video picture and/or handling two interlaced video fields separately. Changing the number of active lines would have also altered the CPU usage for video generation and ratio of it available for other use.
Read more about this topic: Galaksija (computer)
Famous quotes containing the words video and/or generation:
“These people figured video was the Lords preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. Hes in the de-tails, Sublett had said once. You gotta watch for Him close.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“What makes this Generation of Vermin so very Prolifick, is the indefatigable Diligence with which they apply themselves to their Business. A Man does not undergo more watchings and fatigues in a Campaign, than in the Course of a vicious Amour. As it is said of some Men, that they make their Business their Pleasure, these Sons of Darkness may be said to make their Pleasure their Business. They might conquer their corrupt Inclinations with half the Pains they are at in gratifying them.”
—Joseph Addison (16721719)