Re: [stella] POLL

Subject: Re: [stella] POLL
From: Glenn Saunders <krishna@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 09:35:00 -0800
At 01:31 AM 3/6/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Someone who realized that there was no way in Hell they could release a
machine
>with DMA and other niceties for under $200 in 1977.  Yet, there are several
>ways in Hell to get two tanks, a hungry yellow circle, four flickery ghosts,
>an archeologist in a blue shirt, a jaywalking frog, a few cars, a few
>spaceships, and a few numbers to show up on a machine that had a 1D graphics
>chip.

The 6502 itself was less than 2 years old when the 2600 was designed.  The
whole notion of color video graphics (beyond character graphics or B&W
Pong) was new anyway.  It's not like they had the knowledge to produce a
Playstation chipset in 1977.  It wasn't JUST CPU speed and RAM that held
things back.  It took some strides in the fields of custom chip development
and an understanding of the emerging notions about how to generate
graphics.  That's why so many systems went about it in unique ways compared
to today.  There were no rules.  I'm not even sure there were any systems
before the Atari 2600 with programmable hardware sprites.


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