14 Jan
2014
14 Jan
'14
1:46 p.m.
On 14 January 2014 10:19, Peter Corlett <abuse at cabal.org.uk> wrote:
Have a look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#Technical_specifications
According to that page, about half of the chips were custom, including the
video hardware. Why they bothered building custom hardware for such pedestrian
video when there was surely suitable COTS parts is anybody's guess.
I spent half an hour in the middle of that email trying to answer the
question "what graphics chip did the ST use?"
Basically, AFAICS, it was an unaccelerated flat framebuffer. I thought
they used a Motorola CRT controller or something, but perhaps not.
PC graphics at the time were /dismal/ - the ST dates from around the
late CGA/early EGA era. It predates VGA and supported a higher mono
resolution than EGA. They didn't really have the choice of a cheap
COTS graphics chip, so they rolled their own, AFAICS. Ditto the glue
logic. Even back in the early 1980s this wasn't /that/ expensive.
Its sound was basically the Yamaha AY-3, a chip that
as pretty impressive for
its time and again appeard on many eight bit machines such as the BBC Micro
(again) and newer ZX Spectrums. Sadly, the chip's time was the early-to-mid
1980s, rather than 1989-1990 when the ST was really starting to gain traction
in the UK.
Arguably, yes, but it was the standard and remember that the ST was
being designed around 1983-1984. They couldn't simply replace it
without breaking compatibility.
--
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