Not sure who has seen this yet - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 10:42:17 am
content: This is a computer demo called 8088 MPH, and by far is the most impressive demo I have ever seen, and could be the most technologically damning thing too.So before I link, for those not familiar with the IBM PC's Colour Graphics Adapter, it was an expansion card built for the original IBM 5150, designed to offer SOME colour over the monochrome, non direct address MDA (Text only).So this card, first GPU for the PC as we know it today, emulated still in all of your graphics cards for backwards compatibility. Yes even that GTX 1080 you buy has a CGA mode on it because everything else before it did.This GPU had a regular resolution of 320x200 (640x200 monochrome). And how many colours did it have? Four. Four hardware colours over a palette of 16. And you couldn't directly choose what colours were in what palette. Oh no no! You had 4 pre-determined palettes. The most famous had the colours White, Black, get ready, Magenta and CyanThe three other palletes were red green yellow and black, and just two darker versions of the first two.These were all the colours visible in the 4-bit RGBi colourspace. Through trickery there WAS a mode that could display at 160x100 at the full 16 colours, but the resolution was so low, it wasn't that useful.So why is this so important? It was the 1980s the tech wasn't there yet! Well the card came out in 1981. A year before the C64, which had the VIC-2 chip.That had 16 colours, and you could have them all on screen at the same time at a decent resolution with colour cells (Background foreground sorta deal). You also had sprites, a whole host of other graphics modes, and some other neat trinkets. CGA looking pretty shite now.So back to what I wanted to post here. This demo is called 8088 MPH, and uses black voodoo(not the card) magics to get an, well see for yourself.Pretty damn impressive.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 10:48:43 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 17, 2016, 10:42:17 amIMO not.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 10:51:58 am
content: Quote from: wraper on September 17, 2016, 10:48:43 amIt gets points for having a Touhou song, but is nowhere NEAR as technologically impressive. I've seen that demo, but 8088 MPH brings 3D Rendering to the table, (Also it has the same video display as Domination, check where it goes around the Intel logo) and most importantly, they got a 4 colour graphics card to display over 1000 colours. That is pretty impressive considering the available hardware, and a damn sight more impressive than playing video on a computer. A computer can blindly update pixels if it has the time and storage, it can't however pull 996 colours it doesn't have out of it's pocket, yet they did it.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 11:02:14 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 17, 2016, 10:51:58 amActually, it can. You just dither the pixels, the eye sees them as a combined, new set of colours.tl;dr4 pixels to many colours is easy, once you know how.Failing that, then they could be messing around with the hardware (legitimately using software), using clever techniques.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 11:28:21 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on September 17, 2016, 11:02:14 amI know how they did it. A combination of dithering and using our good old friend.NTSC Artifacting. By doing a special kind of dither, you can get real colours out of colour combinations.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 11:56:06 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 17, 2016, 11:28:21 amNTSC doesn't apply to bonafide professional/business PC's, since the computer plugs straight into the monitor. Unless you are talking about the very earliest PC's for home (NTSC) TV's. But that maybe could be considered cheating, anyway.Since standard PC's, are suppose to NOT use TV's, ruling out NTSC.Also NTSC would not apply to most other countries either. I''m still not even convinced it has anything to do with NTSC.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 12:10:23 pm
content: Did those cards have a proper frame buffer? Could it be that the colour palette registers for the video card was changed on the fly to get more colours out per frame? I remember you could do similar trickery on Amiga hardware.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 12:16:04 pm
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on September 17, 2016, 12:10:23 pmThat is exactly what I was thinking, when I said about software messing with the hardware.My limited attempts at blowing up the image and looking at it, seem to just be showing dithering, rather than other techniques. But I could be wrong.Even to get Red Green Blue is not so easy, with only 4 colours, because White and Black, take up 2 of those 4 colours. Unless they managed to make white via RGB pixels very close together.tl;drI'm not sure, if it is just dithering or not.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 12:32:09 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 17, 2016, 10:51:58 amWhich it has nothttps://x86dc.wordpress.com/Quote

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 12:53:52 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on September 17, 2016, 11:56:06 amHe's using a composite display and has the exact intent of using colour artifacting.And he is in the US, he is using an NTSC composite display. There is no frame buffer or any of that, the CGA only has 16KB of screen memory.That is exactly how it's done, and I know as fact. Whatever other tricks he uses I don't know. Possibly dithering, other more complicated options. I just know as fact he is using NTSC Colour Artifacting to produce more colours onscreen. This is not the only time this was done either. It's been used in many CGA games, with special modes for use on a composite display. The 4 colours of CGA comes from the four hardware colours onscreen at once (In most cases) and the 16 colour palette is from the 4-bit RGBI monitor connection that CGA cards can use.On the back of any real CGA card there is a composite out jack, one might not know this, but it's there. On the IBM original, and any fully compliant card.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:09:49 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 17, 2016, 12:53:52 pmSorry, I was mistaken and stand corrected on that. The earliest IBM PC's tended to be mainly in the US (I'm not 100% sure about this, though). I did not realize early IBM PC's had composite outputs (or I'd forgotten), and I especially did not realize that composite could have NTSC as a part of it. I thought NTSC was limited to the analogue (Aerial) signal going into a TV.The following link explains about NTSC, composite and colour artifacts.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colorsI (incorrectly) thought that composite did NOT have NTSC/PAL etc signals in it. I.e. It was a plain video signal.I thought that NTSC/PAL was ONLY present in the analogue Aerial signal.I also thought that IBM PC's always had some kind of RGB type of video signal (apart from some ancient ones meant for TV set usage). Again, sorry I was wrong.So that is impressive then, making all those colours using various techniques.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:26:12 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on September 17, 2016, 01:09:49 pmNTSC IS plain video (Or PAL/SECAM whatever). There isn't any other standard. IBMs had RGBI (Red Green Blue Intensity) that was (I am confused myself) a digital analog signal? No clue.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:32:12 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 17, 2016, 01:26:12 pmWhat I meant was, it has got the phase inversion added (included) to the video signal.PAL = Phase Alternating LineI accept that the composite needs the video signal, colour burst (or similar), sync etc.But the phase inversions (NTSC is similar, but different), are really to cope with limitations of the Aerial distortions/noise/interrupts etc that may occur. I.e. They are to minimize the visual disruption caused by interference etc.With a direct composite link, the phase inversions are probably not really needed. That is what I meant.I should have realized that composite has to be PAL/NTSC etc, in order to encode the video signal in the first place.Since NTSC is American, I know little (but I have heard bits and pieces about it) about it, specifically, sorry.EDIT:Some people are rude (in a joking way) about it. Something like NTSC = Never The Same Color twice or something.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:59:51 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on September 17, 2016, 01:32:12 pmLol, good old Never The Same Colour.At least it's better than Pay for Additional Luxury.orSeriously who Even Cares About Me

author: TheBay
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 02:08:11 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on September 17, 2016, 10:48:43 amYeah agree with you. Saw this ages ago, very impressive!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 03:06:31 pm
content: http://8088mph.blogspot.com/2015/04/cga-in-1024-colors-new-mode-illustrated.htmlhttp://www.reenigne.org/blog/1k-colours-on-cga-how-its-done/

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 03:40:25 pm
content: Composite is the detected (baseband) video signal, so the color and resolution standard (NTSC, PAL, etc.) must be specified.Black-and-white signals were quite similar between standards (amplitude, sync levels and arrangement), but they had different resolutions and base frequencies (50/60Hz, 625/525 lines, etc.).If it's modulated on a channel, it's RF.If it's been decoded, it's component, either YPbPr (basically, decomposed composite) or RGB+sync (fully decoded). The latter is most common among computer peripherals, where CGA/EGA for example had TTL level signals indicating intensity of each color (CGA had RGBI, EGA had RrGgBb, i.e. 2 bits per channel).8088 Domination is technically inferior (the best kind of inferior?). 8088 MPH came after. Both are excellent, though.Tim

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 04:35:33 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on September 17, 2016, 03:40:25 pmI am in agreement with everything you have said here. 8088MPH is AWESOME, and shows what obscure technical tomfv<kery can do for you. Domination was cool, but not technologically impressive to me. It played video well, but the sound was off a sound blaster (Fair enough) and it was just video, no impressive technical stunts.