In article <CAMTenCGxSe9NcrS0KKiL3FufVRJrt5O+0ZSQEnUnaxPXUR4iKg at mail.gmail.com>,
Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> writes:
On 12 January 2013 21:40, Richard <legalize at
xmission.com> wrote:
Compare the sound and graphics hardware present
on the spectrum to
that present on a PDP-11, i.e. none.
Well, fair point, but then again, I was addressing the angle of
whether a PDP could possibly have the CPU power & storage needed. I
think that vid suggests the answer could be "yes" /on that front./
Yes, it does serve as an interesting data point that shows how much
DOOM you can cram into a little machine :-).
The closest
stock unit I can think of that has enough hardware to be
comparable to an 80s home/gaming microcomputer is the Terak. (It has
the ability to produce limited audio.)
Interesting. Had to Google that. Sounds fun!
I've gotten docs scanned and put up on bitsavers; the memory-mapped
registers for the graphics hardware and sound port (basically a PWM
analog line connected to the speaker in the monitor) are explained.
An alternative: what was the Russian home computer
which was
PDP-compatible?
That could be another interesting alternative.
I find myself quite intrigued by the possibility of a
PDP/11 with
graphics. That would be something I would quite like to play with.
A bunch of DEC's early graphics "terminals" were indeed just that.
The GT40, GT62, etc., were all machines with a PDP-11 as the graphics
controller and a dynamic refresh display.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
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