Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue Apr 23 23:55:52 2002

Careful now, Ben ... I believe I remember what the 6847 is. It only supported
one character display format. While I agree that the CGA is a piece of crap,
as is any display with fewer than 768 pixels horizontally and 512 vertically
on an NTSC frame, and also including CGA, Herc, and EGA, the 6847 couldn't
manage more than its 256x192 pixels, in what ... 4 colors if you include
black? The entire system timing was heavily dependent on the 6847 and that
peculiar 74LS768 or whatever ( sequential address multiplexer ) without which
they couldn't have built the thing in the size they did.

I developed hardware and firmware for the 6809 enough to know it was a decent
enough CPU, though it paid dearly in performance for the seldom-used
enhancements that its instruction set supported.

Now, what do you mean by a "real" display?

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Franchuk" <bfranchuk_at_jetnet.ab.ca>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)


> Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
> > With the COCO, you're better off starting from a wirewrap panel and a
bucket
> > of parts, since the video on the COCO is not "up to snuff," i.e. 80x24
> > characters-capable. It uses that ridiculous 6847, IIRC, and even at 32
> > characters (or was it 40), it's pretty shabby. The other RS stuff wasn't
much
> > better with its unconventional 64x16. They foisted that ridiculous format
off
> > on the public to save a buck on display ram. <sigh>
>
> Nope -- the original coco was 4 or 16 K of ram. The PC had a real
> display (monochrome).
> The CGA was a piece of crap!
>
>
> --
> Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
> www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
>
>
Received on Tue Apr 23 2002 - 23:55:52 BST