knudsen@ihnss.UUCP (01/26/84)
The Jan 26 issue of Electronic Design mag has a writeup on a pair of new Motorola chips for color graphics, with a wide range of performance. A system using these chips is much like the TRS COlor COmputer with its SAM and VDG chips. One of the new chips multiplexes the dynamic RAM between the processor and itself, while "itself" pulls out of RAM the needed bytes for the second chip, which generates the graphics. This chip includes color registers (16) which index into a palette of 4096 colors (16 levels each of RGB), plus 10 sprites (which M'ola calls "objects") with priority and collision detection. What more could you ask? How about the virtual screen, which can blow up a small part of an image for display on a color TV that can't hack the resolution needed to show all at once? Smooth scrolling in all directions? It's there. Minmum resolution is 256H x 192V (like Color Computer chipset), up to 600 x 400 (approx; I don't have the article here). Each pixel can use 1, 2, or 4 bits of a byte, so RAM consumption could range from 6K to 128K. These chips should open up cheaper CAD/CAM systems on one hand, and better games on the other. Unfortunately, no cost estimates are given; the chips seem to be about 40 pins each and are said to work with 6809E, 68000, or 68008. Not associated with Motorola, just pleased with them -- mike k