<console interface. In fact I don't know of a graphics card that was, thoug
<on toward '82-83 there were a few with some of the more "capable" graphics
<support chips like the NEC 7220 or that "BIG" Hitachi graphics chip, thoug
<I never saw one except at a trade show.
The 7220 was introduced early 1980 and volume ships were 5 months later.
By 1983 it was well on it way to next generation.
<Some of these were pretty demanding applications which quickly pointed up
<the weakness in using 8-bit computers for multi-plane graphics. They also
<pointed up the fact that decent high resolution color monitors cost about a
<much as a house . . . well, not quite, but you get the idea. If you bough
<one, you'd better keep the box, because you'd need a place to live when you
<wife found out . . .
We did a multibus baord with the first 7220s and we had a heck ofa time
with the monitors as most really could not do the bandwidth and the .042
dot size didn't help! As to using a z80, it was awkward but doable though
we designed with a 8086 in mind as we sourced that as well. By late 81 we
were running a 4plane (1 megabit planes) graphics CPM86 with 512k of ram.
The key was the system was cheap for the time considering it was multibus
based.
Allison
Received on Sat Apr 24 1999 - 17:04:52 BST