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This is a '''list of home computers''', sorted [[alphanumeric]]ally, which lists all relevant details of their '''[[Video Display Controller|video hardware]]'''. A [[home computer]] was the description of the second generation of [[desktop computers]], entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. A decade later they were generally replaced by [[IBM PC compatible]] "PCs", although in actuality home computers are also members of the class known as [[personal computer]]s. Examples of typical early home computers include the Sord SMP80/X, Altair 8800, [[TRS-80]], [[Atari 8-bit family|Atari 400/800]], [[NEC PC-8801]], [[NEC PC-9801]], [[BBC Micro]], [[ZX Spectrum]], [[MSX#MSX 1|MSX 1]], Fujitsu [[FM-7]], [[Sharp X1]], [[Amstrad CPC 464]], and [[Commodore 64]]. Examples of typical late home computers include the [[MSX#MSX2|MSX 2]], [[Amiga]], [[Atari ST]], [[Sharp X6800]], Fujitsu [[FM Towns]], and [[NEC PC-9821]]. Note: in cases of manufacturers who have made both [[home computer|home]] and [[personal computer]]s, only machines fitting into the ''home'' computer category are listed. Systems in the PC category, except for early Macintosh personal computers, are generally all based on the [[VGA]] standard, and use a video chip known as a [[Graphics processing unit]]. However, early PCs used one of the much simpler (compared to most home computer video hardware) video display controller cards, using standards such as the [[IBM Monochrome Display Adapter|MDA]], [[Hercules Graphics Card]], [[Color Graphics Adapter|CGA]] and [[Enhanced Graphics Adapter|EGA]] standards. Only after the introduction of the VGA standard could PCs really compete with the home computers of the same era, such as the Amiga and Atari ST, or even with the MSX-2. Also not listed are systems that are typically only gaming systems, like the [[Atari 2600]], [[Bally Astrocade]], and [[Nintendo Famicom|Nintendo Family Computer]], even though these systems could sometimes be upgraded to resemble a home computer. ==The importance of having capable video hardware== Early home computers all had quite similar hardware, (and software) mostly using the [[MOS Technology 6502|6502]], the [[Z80]], or in a few cases the [[Motorola 6809|6809]] microprocessor. They could have only as little as 1 [[kilobyte|KB]] of [[random access memory|RAM]] or as much as 128K, and software wise, they could use a small 4K [[BASIC]] interpreter, or an extended 12K or more BASIC. So the basic systems were quite similar, except for one part of the system, the video display hardware. Some systems proved to be much more successful than others, and careful observers will see that the most successful systems had the most capable video hardware. The reason for that is that the success of the home computer was mostly determined by the kind of [[Video Game|games]] you could play on it. If you wanted to run a nice video game on a home computer, all the other specifications of the system, such as the CPU, the kind of BASIC, even to a degree how much memory the system had (if had at least 32K or more) did not matter much. What mattered most was what kind of picture could be put on the screen, and how easy or hard it was for a programmer to get enough capabilities out of the video hardware to create the effects necessary for the game. A case in point is the [[Commodore 64]]. Its microprocessor lacked advanced math functions and was relatively slow. In addition, the built-in BASIC interpreter lacked any sort of graphics commands, as it was the same version that was developed for the older [[Commodore PET]] (a computer without any high resolution graphics capabilities at all). However, these drawbacks were of little consequence, because the C64 had the [[VIC-II]] chip. When accessed by [[machine language]] programs, the graphic capabilities of this chip made it practical to develop arcade-style games.<ref>[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1991/a_history_of_gaming_platforms_the_.php?print=1 History of the C64 as gaming platform]</ref> Additionally, specific machine language coding exploiting quirks of the VIC-II chip allowed for special tricks to draw even better pictures out of the VIC-II chip.<ref>[http://www.studiostyle.sk/dmagic/gallery/gfxmodes.htm Some of the graphics capabilities of the 1982 VIC-II chip, designed at a time that other systems could only generate much more primitive graphics]</ref> The comparatively large memory and the audio capabilities of the C64 also lent themselves well toward the production of desirable games. A negative example was the [[Mattel Aquarius|Aquarius]] by [[Mattel]] which had such incredibly limited video hardware (for the time period) that it was retracted from the market after only four months due to bad sales. ===Video Arbitration Logic=== One major problem that early computer video hardware had to overcome was the ''Video bus arbitration'' problem. The problem was to give the video hardware (VDU) continuous read access to the video RAM, while at the same time the CPU also had to access the same RAM. The obvious solution, using [[Time-division multiplexing|interleaving time slots]] for the VDU and RAM was hard to implement because the logic circuits, and video memory chips of the time did not have the switching speed they have now. For higher resolutions the logic and the memory chips were barely fast enough to support reading the display data, let alone for dedicating half the available time for the slow 8-bit CPU. That said, there was one system, the [[Apple II]], that was one of the first to use a feature of the data-bus logic of the [[MOS Technology 6502|6502]] processor to implement a very early interleaving time slot mechanism to eliminate this problem. The [[BBC Microcomputer]] used 4 MHz RAM with a 2 MHz 6502 in order to interleave video accesses with CPU accesses. Most other systems used a much simpler approach, and the [[TRS-80]]'s video logic was so primitive that it simply did not have any bus arbitration at all. The CPU had access to the video memory at all times. Writing to the video RAM simply disabled the video display logic. The result was that the screen often displayed random horizontal black stripes on the screen when there was heavy access to the video ram, like during a [[Snake (video game)|video game]]. Most systems avoided the problem by having a [[device register|status register]] that the CPU could read, and which showed when the CPU could safely write to the video memory. That was possible because a [[composite video]] signal blanks the video output signal during the "[[blanking (video)|blanking periods]]" of the horizontal and especially the long [[Vertical blanking interval|vertical]] video [[Synchronization|sync]] pulses. So by simply waiting for the next blanking period the stripes could be avoided. This approach did have one disadvantage, it relied on the software not to write to the screen during the non-blanking periods. If the software ignored the status register the stripes would re-appear. Another approach, used by most other machines of the time, was to temporarily stop the CPU using the "WAIT/BUSRQ" ([[Z80]]) "WAIT" ([[Motorola 6809|6809]]) or "SYNC" (6502) control signal whenever the CPU tried to write to the screen during a non-blanking period. Yet another, more advanced, solution was to add a hardware [[FIFO]] so that the CPU could write to the FIFO instead of directly to the RAM chips, which were updated from the FIFO during a blanking interval by special logic circuitry. Some later systems started using special "two port" video memory, called [[VRAM]], that had independent data output pins for the CPU interface and the video logic. ==The main classes of video hardware== There are two main categories of solutions for a home computer to generate a video signal. * a custom design, either build from '''[[Logic gate|discrete logic]]''' chips, or with some kind of '''[[Programmable logic device]]'''. * a system using some form of '''[[Video Display Controller]]''' (VDC), a [[Very-large-scale integration|VLSI]] chip that contained most of the logic circuitry needed to generate the video signal. Systems in the first category were the most flexible, and could offer a wide ranges of (sometimes unique) capabilities, but generally speaking the second category could offer a much more complex system for a comparable lower price. Note that for completeness, systems that did not really have "Video" hardware in the conventional sense, but used [[7-segment display]]s as a visual output device have been included. The VDC based systems can be divided into four sub-categories. # '''Simple video shift register''' based solutions, have a simple "video shifter chip", and the main CPU doing most of the complex stuff. Only one example of such a chip for a home computer exists, the [[RCA_1802#Video|RCA CDP1861]] used in the [[COSMAC VIP]]. It could only create a very low resolution monochrome graphic screen. The chip in the [[Sinclair ZX-81]] also is a video shifter, but is not a dedicated chip but a programmable chip, a [[Gate array|ULA]]. The CDP1861 however was specially designed for this task only. Dedicated Video shifter chips did have some use in very early game systems, most notable the [[Television Interface Adapter]] chip in the [[Atari 2600]]. Note that although one of the chips in an [[Atari ST]] is also called a "video shift register" it does not fall into this class, mainly because the IC's in this class depend on the main CPU to feed them with picture data. They do nothing more than generate the sync signals and convert parallel data into a serial video data stream. The Atari ST's chip used a DMA system to read out video data independent of the main CPU, and contained a palette RAM, and resolution/color mode switching logic. # '''CRTC''' (Cathode Ray Tube Controller) based solutions. A CRTC is a chip that generates most of the basic timing and control signals. It must be complemented with some "Video RAM" and some other logic for the "arbitration", so that the CPU and the CRTC chip can share access to this RAM. To complete the design, a CRTC chip also needs some other support logic. For example a ROM containing the [[bitmap]] [[font]] for [[text mode]]s, and logic to convert the output from the system into a [[video signal]]. # '''Video interface controllers''' were a step up on the ladder, these were true [[VLSI]] chips that integrated all of the logic that was in a typical CRTC based system, plus a lot more, into a single chip. The [[VIC-II]] chip is probably the best known chip of this category. # '''Video co-processor''' chips are at the highest end of the scale; Video interface controllers that can manipulate, and/or interpret and display, the contents of their own dedicated Video RAM without intervention from the main CPU. These chips are highly flexible offering options and features with minimal CPU involvement that on other systems are impossible or at best difficult to produce, requiring extensive CPU overhead. The Atari [[ANTIC]]/[[CTIA and GTIA|GTIA]] and Amiga [[Amiga Original chipset|OCS]]/[[Enhanced Chip Set|ESC]]/[[Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture|AGA]] are well known examples of this high-feature category. But note that not all video co-processors are powerful, some are even simpler than many ''Video interface controllers'', notably the primitive SAA5243 which is still technically a co-processor. ==Explanation of the terms used in the tables== *'''System Name''', the name of the system, or if there are many similar versions, the name of the most well known variant, see Notes. *'''Year''' the year that the first version of this system came on the market. *'''Chip name''' the name of the chip that was used as the basis for the video logic. *'''Video RAM''' the maximum amount of RAM used for the video display, depending on the resolution used the system may use less. *'''[[Text mode]](s)''' The numbers of characters per line and lines of text the system supported. Sometimes more than one mode was possible *'''Font extras''' describes extra graphical possibilities a video system had because of optional features of their character sets, there are currently three categories: :*'''LC''' Some systems could only display [[upper case]] characters in text mode because of their limited character set, If a system was able to also support lower case letters in a text mode, (in any highres mode it is of course always possible), then there is '''LC''' (for '''Lower Case''') in this column. :*'''BG''' Some systems used [[text semigraphics|a matrix of blocky pixels instead of a letter]] in their font sets (or used dedicated hardware to emulate them, like the [[TRS-80]] did), to support some sort of [[all points addressable]] (APA) mode. Its hard to call this a "high resolution" mode, because the resolution could be as low as 80x48 pixels, but in any case you could draw pictures with them. In case of systems that used such a system as its "APA" mode there is '''BG''' (for '''Block Graphics)''' in this column. :*'''SG''' Some other systems used [[Text_semigraphics#Semi_graphical_characters|semi graphical characters]] like [[box-drawing characters]] dots and [[Suit (cards)|card symbols]], and "graphical building block" [[Geometric Shapes|geometric shapes]] such as triangles to give the system the appearance it could do high resolution graphics while in reality it could not, Systems like that have '''SG''' (for '''semi graphical characters''') in this column. Many systems like the PET had a few of such characters dedicated to block graphics for an APA mode as well, often only for 2x2 matrix characters. Sometimes the system filled (or could fill) a reprogrammable section of the font set which such characters, these systems mainly fall under the "soft font" heading. Note that the BG and SG entries are only used when the system relied on them, had them predefined in its default character set, or, (what often happened on early systems) had them printed on the keyboard keys for direct entry in combination with some kind of "graphic shift" key. *'''Soft Font''' when the system had a programmable font RAM instead of a static "[[Read-only_memory#Use_for_storing_data|font ROM]]", or when the video system did not have a hardware [[text mode]], but painted text in the highres screen using software, the video display wasn't dependent on a permanent font set, in this case we are talking about a system with a "soft" font. *'''text colors''' The number of colors the characters could have. If more than one text mode is supported the ''text colors'' column also lists the same numbers in the same order. *'''Graphics modes''' The number of horizontal and Vertical pixels the system could display in a [[high resolution]] mode, where several high resolution modes exist each one is listed separately. *'''Graphics colors''' The number of colors each pixel could have in High resolution mode, If more than one high resolution mode is supported the graphics color mode also lists the numbers in the same order. *'''Color resolution''' in "high resolution mode" it was often the case that a certain pixel could not be given an arbitrary color, often certain clusters of pixels, (quite often 8x8 pixels large) shared the same "color attribute", so as to spare video memory, as a 8-bit computer only had a 64 KB address space, and the CPU often had limited capabilities to manipulate video memory, therefore it was often necessary to keep the video RAM size as small as possible, so a minimum of the address space of the micro was used, and also the video content could be changed relatively rapidly. *'''[[List of palettes|Palette Support]]''' If the system could translate a "logical color" into a (larger number) or true colors using a [[Palette (computing)|palette mechanism]] then this column lists the number of logical colors the palette could accept, and the number of colors it could [[Colour Look Up Table|translate to]]. *'''HW accel''' short for '''[[Hardware acceleration]]''' can take several forms, the most obvious form is "[[bit blit]]ting", that is the moving of groups of pixels from one place in video memory to another without the CPU doing any of the moving, another often used technique is hardware scrolling which in fact emulates moving the whole screen in the video ram, a third form of hardware acceleration is the use of [[sprite]]s implemented in hardware. Some systems also supported drawing lines (and sometimes rectangles) using special line drawing hardware. The entry in the column reveals which methods the hardware supported with a two letters for each method. :*'''BL''' for '''[[blitter]]''' :*'''SC''' for hardware '''[[scrolling]]''' support :*'''SP''' for '''hardware [[Sprite (computer graphics)|sprite]]''' support :*'''DR''' for hardware supported '''[[Bresenham's line algorithm|line drawing]]''' *'''[[Sprite]] details''' covers three facets of the sprite support hardware the system used. Each number in the table cell is preceded by two letters. :*'''S#''' for the first facet, is the total '''number of hardware sprites''' the system could support, in hardware (not counting re-use of the same hardware). if the system doesn't support hardware sprites at all the table cell only contains "'''-'''" . If S# is 1 then the single sprite is most often used to support a [[Pointer (graphical user interfaces)|mouse cursor]]. :*'''SS''' for the second facet, is the '''size of the sprite''' in screen pixels'. A sprite could be displayed by the hardware, as a matrix of horizontal by vertical pixels. If more than one sprite size mode is available each one is listed. :*'''SC''' for the third facet, is the number of '''Sprite colors''', it gives the number of colors that a sprite could have. It is about the total number of colors that could be used to define the sprite (transparent NOT included), so if a sprite could only be displayed as a figure in a single color the number is 1. If more than one sprite size mode is available each one is listed. :*'''SP''' for the forth facet, is the number of '''Sprites per scanline'''. Hardware spites use a kind of [[Z-buffer]] to determine which sprite is "on top". Availability of hardware to do this limits the number of sprites that can be displayed on each [[scan line|scanline]]. This number tells how many sprites could be displayed on a scanline before one of them became invisible because of hardware limitations. *'''Unique features''' If the video display has unique features (or limitations) they will be listed here, if space is a limitation the remaining special features are expressed as notes. ''a "'''-'''" in a table cell means that the answer is irrelevant, unknown or in another way has no meaning, for example the sprite size of a system that does not support hardware sprites.'' ''a "'''?'''" in a table cell means that the entry has not yet been determined. if a ? follows an entry it means that other options than the listed ones may also exist'' ''"'''Mono'''" in a table cell means [[monochrome]] that is for example black on white, or black on green.'' ==The list of home computers, and their video capabilities== {{See also|Arcade system board|Instructions per second|Graphics processing unit|Sprite#Hardware sprites|l4=Hardware sprites|Three-dimensional|Two-dimensional}} ===Systems using discrete logic=== {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name !! Year !! Chip name !! Video RAM !! Text mode(s) !! Font extras !! soft fonts !! text colors !! graphics modes !! graphics colors !! color resolution !! palette support !!HW accel!! Sprite details !!unique features |- |[[Aamber Pegasus]] || 1981 || -|| 512 Bytes || 32x16 || LC || Yes || Mono || Programmable characters || Mono || - || None || || -|| Software driven video generation<ref>Details on this very rare system are extremely sparse</ref> |- | [[ABC80]]|| 1978 || -|| 1K || 40x24 || LC, BG || - || Mono || 78x72<ref>Using 2x3 [[Videotex]] block graphics, ([[text semigraphics]]) because a serial attribute was used (probably because bit 7 was used for blinking/non blinking locations) not for switching between text and block graphics, so the first character of a line was needed for switching to graphics mode, thus the horizontal resolution is 78, not 80</ref> || Mono|| - || -|| || -|| [[Videotex]] ([[Prestel]]) support<ref>with a serial attribute system for switching between text and 2x3 semi graphics (6 bit)</ref> |- | [[Acorn System 1|Acorn system 1]] || 1979 || -|| - || 9x1<ref name="7s_text">Using software controlled 7-segment displays it was possible to display not only figures 0-9 like the seven-segment displays used in [[digital clock]]s, but with some imagination you could also display 7-segment configurations for all 27 Alphabethical characters plus several other signs like a question mark, see [[Seven-segment display character representations]]</ref> || -|| -|| -|| -|| -|| -|| -|| -|| -|| nine 7 segment displays |- | [[Apple I]] || 1976 || -|| 729 Bytes<ref>actually the real figure is more complex, it's 6144 bits of which 5760 bits were actually used. This is so because the video data was stored, not in RAM, but in six [[Signetics]] 2504 "[[Shift register|Dynamic shift registers]]" which each held 1024 bits. But only 40×24=960 locations in the shift register were actually used.</ref> || 40x24 || <ref>the six bits per character location were only enough to address 64 characters, A Signetics 2513 character generator ROM held only uppercase characters and some other alphanumerical characters in a 5x7 matrix.</ref> || - || Mono || None ||Mono|| -|| -|| || -|| Dumb terminal<ref>The video display generator of the Apple 1 was NOT memory-mapped but acted as a (very) [[dumb terminal]]. Data was sent to the terminal through a 7-bit parallel port, and a strobe. Six bits were used to choose which character was displayed next, after the last one on the screen at the "cursor position". The six bits corresponded directly with the character selection bits of the Signetics 2513 character generator ROM. When the seventh (most significant) bit was high, it meant the six least significant bits had to be interpreted as a "command", but only two commands existed. The "carriage return" command made it so that the next character would appear at the start of the next line, and the "clear screen" command which would fill all the video memory with spaces, and reset the cursor position to the top left corner. A "busy" bit could be read from the terminal to determine it was ready to accept a new character. Interestingly the counters that were used to create the video timing were also used to create the [[RAM refresh]] signal for the 4K main memory. In many ways, the APPLE I's VDU resembles the one of the [[Datapoint 2200]].</ref> |- | [[Apple II]] || 1977 || -|| 18K<ref>The Apple 2 has a 1K text buffer for the 40x24 text mode or the 40x48 low resolution graphics mode, and a 8K frame buffer for the 280x192 High resolution graphics mode. But because the apple had two text and two graphics pages the total reserved memory for video is 18K. The first text/low-resolution page runs from 0400H to 07FFH, the second from 0800H to 0BFFH. The first high-resolution frame buffer runs from 2000H to 3FFFH and the second one from 4000H to 5FFFH.</ref> || 40x24<ref>in a 5x7 dot matrix with one pixel on either side of characters and a one dot high space between each line.</ref> || <ref>Characters could also be inverted or blinking, The arrangement was not completely ASCII compatible! Characters from 00H to 3FH were inverted, from 40H to 7FH were flashing, from 80H to BFH the normal set. Later models added first lowercase and then also line-drawing characters from C0 to DFH, so that all 256 combinations were used.</ref> || - || Mono<ref>The apple turns off the color-burst circuitry during text modes to avoid color fringing.</ref> || 40x48,<ref>using text mode, where instead of characters a stack of two pixels were displayed</ref> 280x192<ref>The apple only displayed 7 pixels of each byte of the frame buffer, the eighth one was used to determine which color combinations the pixels of the other seven bits could have</ref> || 15,<ref>each byte of text mode ram was divided in two nibbles. The "lower" nibble determined the color of the top block, the upper nibble determined the color of the lower block. The sixteen available bit combinations produced fifteen unique colors as the two grays were identical in shade; the colors were, according to official documentation: black, magenta, dark blue, purple, dark green, grey 1, medium blue, light blue, brown, orange, grey 2, pink, light green, yellow, aquamarine, white</ref> 6<ref>There are six colors available in the High-Resolution Graphics mode: black, white, orange, blue, green and violet. Each dot can be either black, white or a color, although not all colors are available for every dot. If a pixel would be 0 then the corresponding pixel would become black, if it was 1, it would become either white, or a color. Which color a pixel in a 7 pixel "line" of dots would become was determined both by the eighth bit of the pixel data byte, but also by its bit location in the byte. If the bit was in the leftmost column on the screen, or in any even-numbered column, then it would appear violet. If the bit was in the rightmost pixel column, or any odd numbered column, it would become green, except when two even and odd pixels were on alongside each other, then both pixels would be white. All this is true for all seven pixels of a display byte where its eight bit would be 0 (off), if this bit was turned "on" (to 1), then the violet and green would be exchanged by blue and orange.</ref><ref>except in revision 0 board, which could only display 4 colors, black, white, green and violet, because the eighth bit of the display byte had no effect</ref> || 180x192<ref>half the pixel resolution</ref> ||None|| || -|| 4 line "caption"<ref name = "caption">In high or low resolution graphics mode the apple could replace the bottom 32 display lines with a four line text "caption", so you could simultaneously display text and graphics.</ref> |- | [[Apple III]]|| 1980 || -|| 64K || 40x24, 80x24 || LC || - ||16 || 280x192, 560x192 || 16, 2<ref>16 shades of green</ref> || ? || -||?|| -|| 228 programmable characters |- | [[Commodore PET]]|| 1977 || -|| 1000 Bytes || 40x25 || BG, SG || - || Mono || 80x50 using part of its [[PETSCII#Code_table|pseudo graphic characters]] set || Mono || - || -|| || -|| 9" Mono monitor, non [[ASCII]] ([[PETSCII]]) character set. |- | [[Compukit UK101]] <ref>Virtual clone of [[Ohio Scientific]] Superboard II computer with an improved text mode, as the original used a less useful 32x32 text mode</ref> || 1979 || - || 768 Bytes || 48x16 || LC SG || No || Mono || None || Mono || - || None || - || - || 256 character font |- |[[DAI Personal Computer]]<ref>basically the VDU was built using discrete logic, but a Ferranti ZNA134 was used to generate the video timing pulses</ref> || 1979 || -|| 32K<ref>Depending on the resolution 1.5K, 5.8K, 22.8K or 32K of RAM was used</ref> || 24x60 4x60<ref>4 lines of text could be combined with high resolution graphics in a mode similar to that of the Apple II split screen mode</ref> || LC || - || 4 or 16 || 88x65, 176x130, 352x260 528x240 || 4 or 16 || 88x65, 176x130, 352x260 528x240 (4 colors) or 11x65, 22x130, 44x260, 66x240 (16 colors) || 4 of 16<ref>in 4 color mode any of the four colors could be assigned to any of the 16 available colors, and the result would be instantaneous, in 16 color mode per 8 pixels only two of the 16 possible colors could be assigned to a pixel</ref> || -|| -|| split screen text graphics mode |- | [[Datapoint 2200]]<ref>The Datapoint 2200 is considered to be the first personal computer, and its CPU resembles Intel's first 8-bit processor, the 8008. This is the case because Intel copied the Datapoints CPU architecture! From the 8008 came the 8080, and from the 8080 and 8085 8-bit CPU, The 8086 was the 16-bit version, and from that the Pentium and all current CPUs used in PCs and Mac's. This not only makes the Datapoint the first PC, but also the granddaddy of all current PC's!</ref> || 1971 || -|| 840 Bytes<ref>Actually its 960 characters (12x80) of seven bit. There were 95 different characters in the 5x7 matrix character ROM, and the datapoint used 7-bits per character to address them</ref> || 80x12 || LC || - || Mono || None ||Mono|| - || || - || -||Shift registers for RAM<ref>The Datapoint used shift registers for its video RAM, and used the power line frequency timing (50 or 60 cycles per second) for a complete refresh cycle. When writing to the Display the CPU had to wait for the next "window", which came 50 (or 60) times a second. Then the CPU could write a single character, or (with special software) multiple characters, up to all 960.</ref> |- |[[Exidy Sorcerer]]|| 1978 || -|| 1920 Bytes|| 64x30 || LC, SG<ref>128 permanent characters, and 128 free definable (8x8 pixel) characters</ref> || Yes || Mono || None<ref>Limited "graphics" modes were possible by programming the 128 (8x8 pixel) programmable characters, one way is to dedicate 64 of them to program a 2x3 pseudo graphics characters ([[text semigraphics]] like the [[TRS-80]]) which would make a 128x90 "pseudo graphics" mode possible. With clever programming the actual resolution of the screen of 512x240 could be put to good use. Per default the software filled the programmable character set with pseudo graphics symbols like the [[Commodore PET|PET]], and the [[Ohio Scientific|Superboard II and UK101]], which could be used to build larger simple graphical figures, like a "[[Stick figure]]".</ref> 512x240 || Mono || -||None|| || -|| Programmable character set allowed [[TRS-80]] and [[Commodore PET|PET]] like graphics |- |[[Galaksija]] || 1983 || -|| 512 Bytes<ref>There is no real video RAM, as the display is mostly built up using software, for purposes other than the character generator driven 32x16 display more RAM could be used.</ref> || 32x16 || BG<ref>the default Character generator EEPROM did not support lowercase</ref> || - || Mono || 64x48<ref>Using 2x3 [[text semigraphics]] characters, like the [[TRS-80]] on an 8 x 13 pixels per character matrix this means that one of the rows was 4 pixels high instead of 3. The Galaksija 2 could display 256x208 graphics, but the original Galiksaija could do this too, using special software tricks</ref> || Mono || -||None|| -|| -||All systems were essentially "home built", on a single sided PCB. Like the [[ZX81]] it was software driven. |- |[[Grundy NewBrain]]|| 1982 || -|| max 20K || 32x25, 32x30, 40x25, 40x30, 64x25, 64x30, 80x25x2, 80x30x2 || LC, BG || - || Mono || 256x256, 320x256, 512x256, 640x256 || Mono || -||None||?|| -|| Built in one line LCD, [[Teletext|Videotext]] mode support |- | [[Interact Home Computer]]<ref>[http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=1004 First sold by Interact, later sold in France by Victor Lambada]</ref> || 1979 || -|| 2184 Bytes || 17x12 || <ref>Characters were drawn on 112x78 pixel graphics screen which means that each character was 6x6 pixels, including blank space between the characters, which lead to very blocky characters, which simply didn't allow for distinctly different lower case characters</ref> || - || 4 || 112x78 || 4 || -|| 4 of 8 || || -||no real text mode, characters drawn by software. |- |[[MUPID]] || 1983<ref>[http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1112 oldcomputers.com entry tells us that the Mupid was developed between 1981 and 1983]</ref> || - || 64K<ref>[http://much.iicm.edu/projects/mupid_1/12.htm/ 2K 32 bits woorden per karakter, zie]</ref> || 40x25) || LC BG SG || YES<ref>user generated graphic symbols lie at the heart of the Mupids graphics capabilities</ref> || 16 || 240x320 || 16 || 240x320 ||16 fixed colors, and 16 choose-able from a palette of 4096 colors ||? || - || Designed by academics, as a [[Bildschirmtext|BTX]] terminal, but with the capabilities of a home computer<ref>[http://www.austria-lexikon.at/af/Wissenssammlungen/Essays/Institutionen,_Bildung,_Kultur/Informatik_TU_Graz_2007 TU Graz page about how the Mupid came to be]</ref> |- | [[Panasonic JR-200]] || 1983 || -|| 2K+2K<ref>2K VRAM + 2K Character RAM according to old-computers.com [http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=553]. and according to this "self portrait picture [http://www.old-computers.com/museum/software/matsushita_jr200_schema_ss.gif]"</ref> || 32x24<ref>8x8 pixel characters</ref> || LC, BG || - || 8<ref>For each character position there was an attribute byte (from C500 to C7FF in memory, see [http://www.asamomiji.jp/kemusiro/index.php?JR-100$A5$A8$A5$DF$A5$E5$A5$EC$A1$BC$A5$BF](translate with babelfish)). The three least significant bits (0,1 & 2) determined the foreground color, and the next three bits (3, 4 & 5) the background color, from LSb to Msb in the order blue, red, green. Bit six was used to switch between predefined, and software defined characters. A similar scheme was used when one of the 16 semi graphics characters was chosen, where two attribute bytes were used for each of the sixteen block combinations, to determine the color of each quadrant of the semi graphics character.</ref>|| 192x256<ref>Not point addressable, but through the 8x8 pixel programmable character set</ref> 64x48<ref>64x48 by using one of the 16 available characters with a 4x4pixel (quarter character) [[text semigraphics]] pattern</ref> || 8<ref>Black, Blue, Red, Magenta, Green, cyan, Yellow and White</ref> || -||None|| || -||none<ref>unique semi-graphic pixel color attribute scheme made that each of the 64x49 semi-graphic "pixels" (consisting of a quarter of an 8x8 pixel character space) could have its own independent color, these semi-graphics could be combined with predefined characters, or programmable characters, each of which could also have an independent foreground and background color out of a palette of 8.</ref> |- |[[PMD 85]] || 1985 || -|| 9600 Bytes<ref>Calculated as 288x256 pixels/8 = 9216 bytes for pixel data and 384 bytes for grayscale data (2 bits per pixel) for each of the 48 (6-pixel) rows per line</ref>|| 48x32<ref>assuming 6x8 pixels per character, details are unclear</ref> || LC<ref>soft fonts as characters are drawn only in a graphics mode screen, no text mode hardware exists</ref> || -|| 4 gray-scales || 288x256 || 4 gray-scales || -||None||?|| -|| no text modes, only a single 288x256 graphics 4 gray-scales mode |- | [[Jupiter Ace]] || 1982 || -|| 2K<ref>1K for fonts, (128 8x8 characters) and 1K for character data (768 bytes)</ref> || 32x24 || LC, BG || - || Mono || 64x48<ref>64x48 using [[TRS-80]] style [[text semigraphics]], in theory 256x192 resolution was possible by using the 128 characters, but not "all pixels addressable" (APA) as only for one quarter of the screen there could be unique APA characters</ref> || Mono|| - || -|| -|| -|| none |- | [[KIM-1]] || 1976 || -|| - || 6x1<ref name="7s_text"/> || - || - || -|| 7x6 LED's <ref>each segment of the six seven segment displays could be independently turned on and off</ref> || - || - || || -|| -||7 segment display |- |[[LINK 480Z]]<ref>and [[Research Machines 380Z]]</ref>|| 1982 || -|| 2K<ref>for basic system, the Hires expansion board had its own 16K Video RAM</ref> || 40x25, 80x25 || LC || - || Mono|| None<ref>A separate independent video display generator board could be added that did support high resolution graphics of 640x192x1, 320x192x2 or 160x96x4 bits per pixel</ref> || Mono || - || -|| || -||none |- |[[Sharp_MZ-80K#MZ-80K_group|MZ-80K]]|| 1979 || -|| 1000 Bytes || 40x25 || LC, BG, SG || - || Mono || 80x50<ref name="ReferenceA">Code table 1 contained 16 [[text semigraphics]] characters with all combinations of a 2x2 matrix of blocks on and off to use to create a pseudo all points addressable 80x50 mode</ref> || Mono || -|| None || || -|| many well chosen pseudo-graphics characters<ref>The MZ-80 K had very poor graphics capabilities, but the large sets of well chosen pseudo graphic characters made it possible to still create some enjoyable games, especially when the MZ700 came out which added color</ref> |- | [[Ohio_Scientific#Products|OSI Superboard II]] <ref>The popular [[Compukit UK101]] was a virtual clone with a different (48x16) text mode, and designed for the [[PAL]] instead of the [[NTSC]] standard</ref><ref>The OSI Superboard II was also famous for being the first system for which [[Microsoft BASIC]] in [[Read-only memory|ROM]] was available</ref> || 1979 || - || 1K || 32x32 <ref>actually only an area of 24x24 visible, the area outside that wasn't normally visible on a TV, and therefore not used by the software. The UK101 improved that by changing the video logic to display a visible (on PAL systems) 48x16</ref> || LC SG || No || Mono || None || Mono || - || None || - || - || 256 character font <ref>The system shared one (ugly) characteristic with the TRS-80 (and many other systems of the time like the [[Nascom]]) in that OSI also didn't know how to overcome the "video glitching" (A.K.A. "black snow") Problem.</ref> |- | [[Nascom]] (1&2) || 1977 || -|| 768 Bytes || 48x16 || LC, SG || - || Mono || none<ref>96x48 using 64 characters (pseudo graphics) of the 128 characters of the optional extended character set ROM</ref>||Mono|| -||None|| || -|| None |- | [[Newbear 77-68]] || 1977 || -|| 1 Byte || none || -|| -|| 8x1 || -||Mono<ref>color depending on color of LEDs used</ref> || - || -|| -|| -|| Eight LEDs |- | [[Processor_Technology#Products|SOL-20]]||1976 || - <ref>The SOL-20 used the Motorola 6574 character generator ROM as a basis</ref> || 1K || 64x16 || LC, SG <ref>the first 32 characters in the Motorola character generator ROM contained special pseudo graphics characters, mostly line drawing characters, and such. For the [[Bell character|ASCII BELL code]] there was a simple bell shape in the character set. Alternatively the character ROM could produce two letter abbreviations of the ASCII control characters</ref> || No || Mono || None || -|| -|| -|| -|| -|| One of the first systems with built in video hardware <ref>even earlier than the SOL-20 were the many early [[S100 bus]] based systems you could also insert a video card into, some were very primitive but many had very good graphics capabilities, one such an S100 based system was the ECD corp. Micromind. A very capable early S100 video card was the "Merlin intelligent video interface" by "MiniTerm" associates. Perhaps the most famous one (at the time) was the [[Cromemco Dazzler]]. However all S100 based systems fall outside the scope of this article, as this article describes complete (and standardized) systems, not just video cards</ref> |- |[[Tiki 100]] || 1984 || - || 32K || 40x25, 80x25, 160x25 || LC || Yes || 16, 4, 2 || 256x256, 512x256, 1024x256 || 16, 4, 2 || 256x256, 512x256, 1024x256 || 256 ||SC|| - || none |- | [[TRS-80|TRS-80 Model 1]] || 1977 || -|| 1K<ref>Actually its less than 1K, its 7168 bits, because there were only seven 1024x1 [[bit]] RAM's used to store the seven bits per character. That is also why lowercase could not easily be accomplished. Of the 128 possible characters 64 were used for the "pseudographics", and the remaining 64 came from a character generator PROM that only contained uppercase characters</ref> || 32x16 64x16 || BG || - || Mono || 64x48 128x48 || Mono || -||None|| || -|| The canonical system to use [[Text semigraphics]] <ref>each character mapped to a matrix of 2x3 pixels to generate a semi-high resolution mode". No video ram arbitration logic meant that writing to the screen caused a lot of "snow", that is black stripes in the screen during write accesses.</ref> |- | [[Video Genie]] || 1980 || -|| 1K || 32x16 64x16 || BG<ref>The later Genie 1 added lowercase support</ref> || - || Mono || 64x48 128x48 || Mono || -||None|| || -|| Clone of TRS-80 |- | [[ZX80]]|| 1980 || -|| 792 Bytes<ref>In fact unlike any other system (except the ZX8) the ZX81 used a flexible "display buffer", that contained no more than the absolute number of bytes, that is one byte for each character displayed from the start of a line, plus an "end of line" byte.</ref> || 32x24 ||BG, SG|| - || Mono || 48x64<ref>Using the eight [[text semigraphics]] characters, plus the "inverse video" option, you could display a very coarse 48x64 point addressable mode, however because the display was completely under software control some very ingenious games managed to generate a true "high resolution" display potentially with a 256x192 resolution, other games even overcame the "slow mode" problem</ref> || Mono || - || -|| -|| -|| "slow mode", software generated display<ref>slow mode meant that basic programs only could generate a display or do computing work, not both at the same time, while displaying a picture the only other task the ZX80 did was waiting for a key-press. Some assembler programs managed to overcome the problem. The ZX80 successor, the ZX81 overcame the problem by using the time between two display frames to do some computing</ref> |} ===Systems using simple Video Shift Registers=== {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name || Year || Chip name || Video RAM || Text mode(s) || Font extras || soft fonts || text colors || graphics modes || graphics colors || color resolution || palette support ||HW accel|| Sprite details ||unique features |- |[[COSMAC VIP]] || 1977 || [[RCA 1802#Support chips|CDP 1861]] || 256 Bytes !<ref name = "1861vram">Part of regular RAM and size depending on graphic resolution</ref> || None !<ref name="viptxt">in practice text was often drawn in the low resolution graphics, especially when using the [[CHIP-8]] programming system</ref> || - || - ||Yes|| 64x32<ref name = "1861graphics">64x32 when using ¼K of RAM, 64x64 when using ½K of RAM, 64x128 with 1K of RAM</ref> || Mono || - || - || - ||- || Incredibly primitive |- |[[Telmac 1800]]|| 1977 || [[RCA 1802#Support chips|CDP 1861]] || 256 Bytes<ref name = "1861vram"/> || None<ref name="viptxt"/> || - || - ||Yes||64x32<ref name = "1861graphics"/> || Mono || - || - || - || - || Incredibly primitive |- |Oscom NANO|| 1980 || CDP 1864 || 256 Bytes<ref name = "1861vram"/> || None<ref name="viptxt"/> || - || - ||Yes|| 64x32<ref name = "1861graphics"/> || Mono || - || - ||-|| || Incredibly primitive |- |ETI 660|| 1981 || CDP 1864 || 1.5K <ref name = "1861vram"/> || None<ref name="viptxt"/> || - || - ||Yes|| 64x192<ref name = "1864graphics">64x48 when using 384 Bytes of RAM, 64x96 when using 768 Bytes of RAM, 64x192 with 1.5K of RAM</ref> || 8<ref>With a special hardware extension the ETI 660 could display 8 colors per pixel on a background that could be chosen from 4 colors</ref> || - || - ||-|| || primitive but supporting color |- |Telmac 2000|| 1980 || CDP 1864 || 384 Bytes<ref name = "1861vram"/> || None<ref name="viptxt"/> || - || - ||Yes|| 64x48<ref name = "1864graphics"/> || 8 || ? || - ||-|| - || Incredibly primitive but supporting color |} ===Systems using programmable logic=== {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name || Year || Chip name || Video RAM || Text mode(s) || Font extras || soft fonts || text colors || graphics modes || graphics colors || color resolution || palette support ||HW accel|| Sprite details ||unique features |- | [[Acorn Electron]] || 1983 || [[Gate array|ULA]] <ref>[[Ferranti]] Custum ULA</ref> || 20K (max) <ref name = "mode">Depending on the screen mode used</ref> || 20x32 40x25 40x32 80x25 80x32 <ref name = "softtext">All text output produced by software in Highres graphics modes</ref> || LC || Yes || 4 or 16, 2 or 4, 2 or 4, 2, 2 || 160x256, 320x256, 640x256, 320x200, 640x200 || 4 or 16, 2 or 4, 2, 2, 2 || 160x256, 320x256, 640x256, 320x200,<ref name ="spaced">spaced display with two blank horizontal lines following every 8 pixel lines</ref> 640x200 || Yes || || - || None |- | [[Elektronika BK]] || 1985 || ULA <ref>The [[K1801VP1-037]] with 600 logic elements</ref> || 16K || 32x25, 64x25 <ref name="softtext"/><ref>By bypassing the BIOS soft-font routines, some applications managed an 80x25 screen by using 6x8-pixel characters, instead of the standard 8x8-pixel characters</ref> || LC || - || 4, 2 || 256x256, 512x256 || 4, 2 || 256x256, 512x256 || Yes <ref>16 hardwired 4-color sets selectable from a 64-color palette</ref> || || - || None |- |-| [[Amstrad PCW]] || 1985 || [[Application-specific integrated circuit|ASIC]] <ref>It's unclear if the PCW's ASIC was a completely dedicated chip designed from scratch or a gate array</ref> || 23K || 90x32 <ref name = "softtext"/><ref>because the margins were normally not used the actual line only had 80 characters</ref> || LC || Yes || Mono <ref name="monogreen">Black and green</ref> || 720x256 || Monochrome <ref name = "monogreen"/> || - || - ||S|| 0 || - || - || Scroll RAM <ref>with a resolution of 720 by 256. Even with one bit per pixel, the PCW's video buffer occupied 23 K of RAM, making software scrolling far too slow for fluid text manipulation. In order to improve this, the PCW implemented [[Indirection|roller RAM]], with a 512-byte area of RAM used to hold the address of each line of display data, effectively allowing very rapid scrolling. The video system also fetched data in a special order designed so that plotting a character eight scan lines high would touch eight contiguous addresses. This meant that very fast Z80 copy instructions like LDIR could be used. Unfortunately, it meant that drawing lines and other shapes could be very complicated.</ref> |- | [[Mattel Aquarius]] || 1983 || PLA1 <ref>short for Programmable Logic Array #1</ref>|| 2000 Bytes <ref>using almost half of the systems feeble 4K, resulting in only 1.7K for (BASIC) programs</ref> || 40x25 || LC, BG || - || 16 <ref>16 foreground, and 16 background colors per character</ref> || 80x75 <ref>using TRS-80 like 2x3 [[Text semigraphics]] characters, available in the font</ref> || 16 || 40x25 || None || || - || None <ref>The system had such bad graphics (and feeble amount of memory) that after only four months it was withdrawn from the market</ref> |- |[[RM_plc#Products|Nimbus PC-186]] || 1984 || [[FPGA]] <ref>Unnamed FPGA based VLSI, further details unknown</ref> || 64K || 40x25, 80x25 || LC|| - || 16 || 320x250, 640x350 || 16, 4 || 320x250, 640x350 || None ||?|| - || Early [[x86]]-based non [[IBM PC compatible|IBM-PC]] system with good graphics |- |[[Tangerine_Computer_Systems#Oric-1|Oric 1]] <ref>and Oric Atmos, which is the same system, only with a better keyboard and improved ROM. The STRATOS / IQ 164 was almost identical, but was planning to support 16 colors. Although never released, it inspired the French TELESTRAT, which is also very similar to the Oric 1, but was to have 80 columns text mode and CP/M.</ref> || 1983 || HSC 10017 [[Uncommitted Logic Array|ULA]] || 8K || 40x28 || LC <ref>Oric also had a programmable character set</ref> || Yes <ref>through a programmable character set</ref> || 8 || 240x200 || 8 || 40x200 <ref name = serial>when in text mode It reads 40 bytes in memory to display a 240-pixel line, that is it uses six bits per byte, six bits are used to choose one of the 64 available characters in the current character set, (which could be switched) the other two bits are used to choose whether either to display the character, or to process an attribute. If both bits are zero then the character is simply displayed. If not then a space is displayed in the current background color. The most significant bit is a video reverse bit. When an attribute byte is encountered it immediately affects the rest of the line, and can switch foreground and background color, switch between character sets, change the height of the character, switch to graphics mode and more.</ref> || None || || - || Serial attributes like [[Ceefax]] and [[Prestel]] systems <ref>Somewhat like the Sinclair Spectrum with its "parallel attributes" the serial attributes of the Oric could, using an amount of video memory that was just big enough for a monochrome display, create a color display with many extra features. In Oric's case they were double height characters, blinking characters, switching between text and high-res graphics on the screen, switching between character sets, (from character ROM, or programable character sets) switching the eight for and background colors and more. However, it came with the price that the screen was difficult to manage, and that the attributes took up six consecutive pixels (a character) on the screen in which only the background color could be displayed. Reference see: [http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/index_english.html]</ref> |- |[[SAM Coupé]] || 1989 || ASIC <ref>Made by [[VLSI Technology]], no nickname known, contents designed by Bruce Gordon</ref> || 24K <ref>6 ¾, 12 or 24K</ref> || 32x24, 85x24 || LC || - || 16, 4 || 256x192, 256x192, 256x192, 512x192 || 8, 8, 16, 4 || 32x24, 32x192, 256x192, 512x192||128 colors <ref>16 entries 128 colors</ref> || || - || [[Backwards compatible]] with Sinclair Spectrum |- |[[Thomson MO5]] || 1984 || EFGJ03L gate array || 16K || 40x25 || LC || yes || 16 || 320x200 || 16 || 40x25 || - ||?|| - || light pen |- |[[Thomson TO7]] || 1982 || MC 13000 ALS gate array|| 8Kx8 + 16Kx6 <ref>8Kx8 bits for pixels, 8Kx6 bits for color attributes</ref> || 40x25 || LC || - || 8 || 320x200 || 8 || 40x200 <ref>The TO7 used a complex system with color restrictions, Each line is split into 40 spans of 8 pixels and each span can only have two different colors (among eight). This allows representing 8 pixels with 14 bits (two three-bit palette entries, and 8 one-bit pixel entries) instead of 24 bits.</ref> ||None||?|| - || [[Light pen]], color restrictions |- |[[Technicolor SA|Thomson]] systems [[Thomson MO6|MO6]], [[Thomson TO8|TO8]] and [[Thomson TO9+|TO9+]]|| 1986 || custom [[Texas Instruments|TI]] gate array plus [[EF-9369P]] color palette || 64K || 40x25 and 80x25 (monochrome) || LC || yes || 4,2? || 8 modes from 160x200 to 640x200 || 16 to 2 || from 160x200 to 640x200 || 16 entries 4096 colors ||?|| - ||none |- |[[ZX Spectrum|Sinclair ZX Spectrum]] || 1982 || ULA <ref>[[Ferranti]] 6C001E ULA</ref> || 6912 Bytes || 32x24 <ref name = "softtext"/> || LC, BG || - || 8 (15) <ref name ="black2">Eight colors, but with two brightness levels, however the "color" black is repeated twice, (it was the same with each brightness level) so actually there are just 15 color tints</ref> || 256x192 || 8 (15) <ref name = "black2"/> || 32x24 || None || || - || color limitations <ref>The Sinclair Spectrum high resolution screen has serious color limitations. Each 8x8 pixel block can have only one set of foreground and background colors. This is because of the separate 768-byte color table, (one byte for each 8x8 pixel block). In each of these bytes the lower three bits (0–2) are the background color, the next three higher bits (3–5) are the foreground color and the two remaining high-order bits were used for a "bright" (6th) and a "blinking" (7th) bit, so one could say the Sinclair had 16 colors, eight with low brightness, and eight with high brightness. The color limitations of this design can cause some heavy [[attribute clash]]es, for which the Spectrum is indeed infamous. For more information see [[ZX Spectrum graphic modes]].</ref> |- |[[Timex Sinclair 2068|Timex/Sinclair TS2068]] || 1983 || [[Complex programmable logic device|CPLD]] <ref>Timex's own CPLD called an "SCLD", made by [[NCR Corporation]] for Sinclair, Type "TS 2068 PAL" in an 68-pins [[Quad Flat Package|QFP]]</ref> || 12288 Bytes (max) || 32x24 || LC, BG || - || 8 || 256x192, 256x192, 512x192 || 8,8,2 || 32x24, 32x192 || None || || - || swapping between two 256x192 screens |- | [[Sinclair QL]] || 1984 || [[ZX8301]] [[Uncommitted Logic Array|ULA]] || 32K || 42x25 85x25 <ref name = "softtext"/> || LC || Yes || 8, 4 || 256x256 512x256 || 8,<ref>One bit per RGB color channel</ref> 4 <ref>black, red, green and white</ref> || 256x256, 512x256 ||None|| || - || hardware pixel-based blinking <ref>In 256x256 (eight-color mode) the QL uses one nibble (four bits) per color, one bit is used for each red, green and blue video output, leaving one bit per pixel which is used for turning hardware blinking on or off on a per-pixel basis.</ref> |- |[[ZX81]] || 1981 || ULA 2C184E / 2C210E <ref>Custom made by Ferranti for Sinclair</ref> || 792 bytes<ref>Dynamically allocated in system RAM from 2 to 792 bytes were used depending on screen content</ref> || 32x24 || BG || - || mono || 64x48 <ref>Using 2x2 blocks pseudo graphics characters, as was very common in that era. However, due to the unique design of the ZX81, some games succeeded to generate more complex pictures than the standard software</ref> || mono || 32x24 ||None||-||- || Very low cost design <ref>Due to its software-generated video supported with little hardware, the ZX81 could be made for very little money. Because unlike its predecessor the [[ZX80]] it used a hardware interrupt-based architecture, it could still do some computing during the [[Vertical blanking interval]] when it did not have to generate a picture. This means that interactive games became possible.</ref> |} ===Systems using a CRTC=== {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name || Year || Chip name || Video RAM || Text mode(s) || Font extras || soft fonts || text colors || graphics modes || graphics colors || color resolution || palette support ||HW accel|| Sprite details ||unique features |- |[[ABC 800]]C || 1981 || [[MC6845]] || 16K || 40x24 || LC, BG || - || 8 || 240x240 || 2 ||?|| 2 of 8 ||?|| - || None |- |[[ABC 800]]M || 1981 || [[MC6845]] || 16K || 80x24 || LC || - || 2 || 240x240 || 2 ||?|| 2 of 8 ||?|| - || None |- |[[Acorn Eurocard systems|Acorn Systems 2, 3 and 4]]<ref>An alternative 80×25 text mode card later also became available</ref> || 1980 || [[MC6845]] + [[SAA5050]] || 1K || 40x25 || LC, BG || - || 8 || 80x75 || 8 ||?|| None ||?|| - || Teletext graphics |- | [[Amstrad CPC]] <ref>Pertaining to the Amstrad CPC 464, 472, 664 and 6128</ref> || 1984 || [[MC6845]] || 16K || 20x25, 40x25, 80x25 <ref name = "softtext"/> || LC || - || 16, 4, 2 || 160x200, 320x200, 640x200 || 16, 4, 2 ||?|| 17 of 27 ||?|| - || None |- | [[Amstrad CPC|Amstrad Plus]] || 1990 || [[MC6845]] + [[Application-specific integrated circuit|ASIC]] || 16K || 20x25, 40x25, 80x25 <ref name = "softtext"/> || LC || - || 16, 4, 2 || 160x200, 320x200, 640x200 || 16, 4, 2 ||?|| 32 of 4096 ||SC, SP || S#=16 <ref>with an independent palette of 15 colors, but sprite pixels can also be transparent, and each logical color can be any of 4096 colors</ref> SS=16x16 <ref>three levels of magnification, 1x, 2x and 4x. Independent for X and Y axis</ref> SC=1 SP=16 || screen control<ref>Additional screen controls have been added to allow split screen operation and facilitate smooth scrolling.</ref> |- | [[Aster CT-80]] || 1979 || [[MC6845]] || 1K or 2K<ref>Depending on the boot floppy used, the Aster reconfigured its internal memory map for use as a TRS-80 compatible machine or a fully CP/M compatible machine, including the location in the internal memory map of the video memory. In TRS-80 mode it used 1K (16 lines of 64 characters) and used all 8 -bits of the character to support a full set of 256 characters, and in CP/M compatible mode it used 2000 bytes (25 lines of 80 characters) of a dedicated 2K memory, using the same character-set as the TRS-80 mode</ref> || 64x16, 32x16, 80x25, 40x25 <ref>in TRS-80 as well as in CP/M mode the Aster could switch to a display mode where it would only display the odd display memory bytes at double width. The 40x25 mode was initiated when the system was booted with a special [[Videotex]] [[Computer terminal|terminal]] emulator program. In both modes a hardware "de-snowing" (Video memory arbitration system) system was employed that removed the bothersome "snow" that appeared on a TRS-80 screen whenever the system made a large amount of accesses to the video memory. The memory arbitration logic did not need software support, so it also worked with all existing software</ref> || LC, BG, SG <ref>although the original TRS-80 model 1 did not support lowercase the Aster did. It also supported a second copy of the 2x3 semi graphics set that was [[dither]]ed to emulate a "grey" version of the TRS-80 graphics pixels, and it supported a set of semi-graphics characters similar to the [[PETSCII]] set</ref> || - || Mono || 128x48, 160x75 <ref>160x75 only in the CP/M compatible mode</ref> || 3 gray scales <ref>Actually, the Aster could display the TRS-80 graphics in black (pixel off), white (pixel on) and one grayscale halfway in-between black and white, which was accomplished by [[dither]]ing the pixels in the semi-graphics block with a checkerboard pattern</ref>||-|| None || || - || Dual memory map support<ref>The Aster system could switch "on the fly" between two completely different system architectures, and also switched its video logic and memory map accordingly, it also lowered the dot clock (crystal) in CP/M mode, so the 64X16 and 80x25 screens were equally wide</ref> |- | [[BBC Micro]] || 1981 || [[MC6845]] || 20K (max) <ref>The teletext mode only used 1K of memory, the others from 8 to 20K as needed</ref> || 80x32, 40x32, 20x32, 80x25, 20x32, 40x25, 40x25 <ref>Using [[Teletext]] mode with the aid of an [[SAA5050]] mode, in this mode the Beeb only needed 1K RAM</ref> || LC, BG || - || 2, 4, 8, 2, 2, 4, 2, 8 <ref>by using serial attributes, as common in Teletext systems</ref> || 640x256, 320x256, 160x256, 640x200, 320x256, 160x256, 320x200, 80x75 <ref>using the 2x3 block graphics of teletext mode</ref> || 2, 4, 8, 2, 2, 4, 2, 8 || ?|| 16 <ref>Modes 0 to 6 could display a choice of colors from a logical palette of sixteen, though only eight colors were available; the eight basic RGB colors (0-black, 1-red, 2-green, 3-yellow, 4-blue, 5-magenta, 6-cyan, 7-white) and eight colors in a flashing state, (8-black/white, 9-red/cyan, 10-green/magenta, 11-yellow/blue, 12-blue/yellow, 13-magenta/green, 14-cyan/red, 15-white/black)</ref> ||?|| - || Teletext mode, shadow RAM support<ref>Mode 7 was a Teletext mode and extremely economical on memory, using only 1K, In addition, the BBC B+ and the later Master allowed 'shadow modes', where the framebuffer was stored in 20 K of extra RAM mapped to location 0x8000 onwards ('shadowing' the BASIC ROM mapped to that area), instead of taking up the user memory below 0x8000. This feature was enabled by setting bit 7 of the mode variable, i.e. by requesting modes 128–135.</ref> |- | [[Camputers Lynx]] || 1983 || [[MC6845]] || 32K<ref>Or less when one or more "display pages" were turned off. The lynx used a display page for each of the three primary colors. For example when the BASIC instruction TEXT was executed the lynx turned off the display panes for red and blue, so it could reclaim ⅔th of the memory for the display for bigger programs (with all planes on the Lynx had just 16K left for programs) and this also increased the speed of the system because the VDU did not prohibit the CPU access to the memory so often</ref> || 40x24 <ref name = "softtext"/><ref>The lynx used a trick, the natural resolution of 256 pixels would have called for a display of only 32x24, but by only using 6 pixels wide characters the Lynx could fit in 40 per line, only a very large software overhead was needed, so the display was slow, so slow in fact that the software did not scroll a text screen but simply started on the top line again</ref> || LC || - || 8<ref>Black, blue, red, magenta. green, cyan, yellow and white</ref> || 256x248 || 8 || ? ||None||?|| - || fully pixel addressable in 8 colors |- | [[Colour Genie]] || 1982 || [[MC6845]] || 16K<ref>Colour Genie used 4080 bytes of video RAM when displaying 160x102 graphics in 4 colors, but could use "page flipping"</ref> || 40x24 <ref>or 40x25 with a ROM upgrade</ref> || LC, BG, SG || - || 16 <ref>White, Red, Yellow, Orange. brown, cyan, magenta, light blue, grey, light yellow, violet, light grey, red-violet, bright white</ref> || 160x96 <ref>or 160x102 with upgraded ROMs</ref> || 4<ref>red, green, blue and black</ref> ||?||None||?|| - || Programmable characters<ref>128 8x8 pixel programmable characters, plus 128 semi graphic characters in two sets.</ref> |- |[[Compucolor II]] || 1977 || SMSC CRT5027 || 4K<ref>2K for characters 2K for attributes, that is 3 bits for foreground, and 3 bits for background color, one bit for blinking and one bit for double height characters</ref> || 40x24 || BG || - || 8 || 128x128 || 8 || ?||None||?|| - || 13 " built in color screen,<ref>said to be the first color home computer on the market, the compucolor 1 had a tape-deck instead of a floppy. Screen content tended to wobble when the drive was used because of insufficient power decoupling, very nice graphics for the time</ref> |- |[[Comx-35]] || 1983 || CDP1869 CDP1870 || 3K <ref>1K Video ram and 2K character RAM for 128 programmable characters (6x8 Bytes NTSC or 6x9 Bytes PAL, RAM was available for 6x16 which was possible to use via assembler code)</ref> || 40x24 <ref>In Assembler the width and/or height of the characters could be doubled, so 20x24, 40x12 and 20x12 was also possible</ref> || BG, SG <ref>The Comx-35 was unusual in that it only supported 64 (ASCII) characters, the plus side was that each of the 64 characters could be reprogrammed</ref><ref>Except by reprogramming the character set, But BASIC used uppercase only</ref> || - || 8 || 240x216 (PAL) <ref>Using a programmable font (with 128 characters 6 pixels wide and 9 pixels high) that meant that not each pixel of the theoretical 240x192 could be individually addressed. In fact at most 128x6x9 = 6912 individual pixels could be addressed at any one time</ref> 80x72 <ref>One way to create a real highres mode was to program the character set by diving the 6x9 pixels of the character into 2x3 zones (like the TRS-80 graphics mode), in this way a 80x72 point addressable highres mode was feasible using 64 characters</ref> 120x96 <ref>By using the max character size of 6x16, double height and double width a resolution of 120x96 was possible using 120 characters (20x6) to fill the complete screen</ref> || 8 (5 colors per 6x8 or 6x9 pixels) || ?||None|| || - || None |- | [[Durango F85]] || 1977 || [[Intel 8085#MCS-85 family|Intel 8275]] || 2 KB || 80x24, 64x16 || LC, BG || - || Mono || None || Mono || - || None || ? || - || 9" built in CRT |- | [[Kaypro]] || 1982 || [[MC6845]] || 2 KB || 80x24 || LC, BG || - || Mono || None || Mono || - || None || ? || - || 9" built in CRT |- | [[LNW-80]] || 1982 || [[MC6845]] || 1K or 2K|| 80x24, 64x16, 32x16 || LC, BG || - || 8 || 128x48, 160x75, 480x192 || 8 ||64x16|| None || || - || Clone of the TRS-80 with additional graphic modes |- | [[MAX-80|LOBO MAX-80]] || 1982 || [[MC6845]] || 1K or 2K|| 80x24, 64x16 || LC, BG || Yes<ref>Part of the character-set was programmable</ref> ||Mono|| 128x48, 160x75 || Mono ||-|| None || || - || Clone of the TRS-80 with 80x24 mode |- | [[MicroBee]] || 1982 || [[MC6845#Differences_from_the_6545|6545]]<ref>Unlike the 6845 the 6545 directly supported programmable character-sets</ref> || 4K <ref>2K character RAM, 2K of font RAM for 128 8x16 characters</ref> || 64x16 <ref>Later models also 80x25</ref> || LC, BG || - || Mono <ref>Later models added 2K of attribute RAM adding 16 background and 16 foreground colors</ref> || 128x48 <ref>using the usual TRS-80 semi-graphics trick by programming the font RAM with the needed 2x3 pattern</ref> || Mono || ?||None||?|| - || Color add-on available<ref>Using a slave board, connected to the main board using "spider wiring" a third 2K of RAM with color attribute info could be added, giving 16 color capability</ref> |- |[[Sharp_MZ-80K#MZ-80K_group|MZ-700]] <ref>Like the MZ-80K but with color added, and without a built in CRT</ref> || 1982 || M60719 <ref>VHiMZ60719GSO Sharps own custom VLSI</ref> || 2000 Bytes<ref>1000 bytes for (40x25) characters, and another 1000 Bytes for color data</ref> || 40x25 || LC, BG, SG || - || 8 || 80x50 <ref name="ReferenceA"/> || 8 ||?|| None ||?|| - || color version of MZ-80K |- |[[Sony SMC-70]] || 1982 || [[MC6845|HD46505S2]] || 38KB<ref>VRAM 32 KB + 2 KB Character RAM, 2K attribute RAM and 2K Programmable font (PCG) RAM</ref> || 40x25, 80x25 || LC || yes || 2 out of 16 || 160x100, 320x200, 640x200, 640x400 <ref>160x100 mode could display four pages, 16 colors for border</ref>|| 16, 16, 4, 2 || 160x100, 320x200, 640x200, 640x400 || n out of 16 ||No|| - ||Genlocker (G & P versions) <ref> G version had a NTSC genlocker, and P version a PAL genlocker</ref> Used for [[digital video effect]] generation |- |[[PC-8000 Series|PC-8001]] || 1979 || ìPD3301D || 3K || 36x20, 36x25, 40x20, 40x25, 72x20, 72x25, 80x20, 80x25 || LC, BG || - || 8 || 160x100 <ref>160x200 with an expansion option</ref><ref>Most probable the PC-8001 used a pseudo graphics mode based on the 80x25 text screen with a 2x4 pseudo graphics matrix. The 80x25 mode used 2000 bytes, so there were 1072 bytes left over for attributes. so three bits for the foreground color and three for the background color, the two remaining bits were used for invert and blinking bits</ref> || 8 ||?||None||?|| - || None |- |[[Pecom 64]] || 1985 || CDP1869 CDP1870 || 34K || 40x24 || LC || - || 8 || 240x216 || 8 (5 colors per 6x8 or 6x9 pixels) || ?||None||?|| - || None |- |[[Robotron 1715]] || 1984 || [[Intel 8085#MCS-85 family|Intel 8275]] || 2 KB || 80x24, 64x16 || LC, BG || Yes<ref>for 1715W model</ref> || Mono || None || Mono || - || None || ? || - || had two switchable ROMs for Cyrillic/Latin letters |- |[[Telmac TMC-600]] || 1982 || CDP1869 CDP1870 || 1K<ref>1K Video ram and 2K character ROM</ref> || 64x32 || LC || - || 8 ||None|| - || ? ||None||?|| - || None |- |[[Sharp X1|Sharp X1 (CZ-800C)]] || 1982 || [[MC6845|HD46505]] || 48K<ref>Not accessed through the memory map, but through the Z80's special instructions to access the "I/O map"</ref> || 40x25, 80x25 || LC || - || 8 <ref>There is some confusion here, according to some sources, the programmable character generator (PCG) of the X1 used four-bit per pixel, which means 16 colors, other data claims only eight text colors</ref> || 320x200, 640x200 <ref>Its not obvious whether this is an [[All Points Addressable]] mode, or that these are in fact text modes that used the Programmable Character Generator of the X1 to create an illusion that High Resolution APA graphics were possible. What is also possible is that the X1 had 1000 (40x24) or even 2000 (80x25) unique programmable characters, so that there could be one PCG character for each screen location)</ref> || 8 || ?||None <ref>not sure about this either</ref> ||? <ref>in a way the PGC is a kind of sprite system</ref> || ? || powerful [[All Points Addressable|APA]] color [[Text_mode#Technical_basis|PCG]] <ref>The X1 had a programmable character generator that allowed per-pixel programming with a 4-bit per pixel data. This meant that delicate color graphic "building blocks" could be created on the fly to create bigger full color graphic elements, not only for text, but more specifically for games. Plus the fact that the X1's [[VRAM]] was not memory mapped, but used the Z80 unique extended I/O mapping, where normally the [[Intel 8080|i8080]]) had just 256 I/O locations, the Z80 could supported 16-bit I/O addressing, so the "I/O map" could cover 64K. The X1 used 48K of the I/O map to address VRAM, so all of the 64K memory map could be RAM (except for a small BIOS/IPL ROM).</ref> |- | [[Casio]] FX-9000P || 1980 || [[MC6845|HD46505]] <ref>[http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos.asp?t=1&c=760&st=1 the close-up of the motherboard picture reveals that the Casio system uses a HD46505 CRTC]</ref> || 4K || 32x16 || LC || - || Mono || 256x128 || Mono || ?||None||?|| - || 5.5" built in CRT |} ===Systems using a Video Interface Controller=== {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name !! Year !! Chip name !! Video RAM !! Text mode(s) !! Font extras !! soft fonts !! text colors !! graphics modes !! graphics colors !! color resolution !! palette support !!HW accel!! Sprite details !! unique features |- |[[Video Brain]] || 1978 || UV-201 & UV-202<ref>[http://www.orphanedgames.com/videobrain/magazine_articles/videobrain_computer/VideoBrain%20-%20The%20Consumer%20Computer.pdf Interface Age magazine]</ref> || 168 bytes<ref>one byte for font and one nibble for color, per character assumed</ref> || 16x7 || SG || No || 16<ref>Probably one nibble per character location</ref> || unknown<ref>Details are very sketchy, this is a "best guess" based on 8x8 pixel characters, there was really no point addressable mode, instead graphics were realised with some graphics characters in the character set</ref> || 16 || 16x7 || - || -|| - || very early and short lived |- |[[APF Imagination Machine|APF-1]] || 1979 || [[MC6847]] || 6K || 32x16 || BG || No || 9 || 64x32 <ref name = "64x32"/> 68x48,<ref name = "68x48"/> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96, 128x192, 128x192, 256x192|| 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2 ||?|| None ||?|| - || None |- | [[Acorn Atom]] || 1980 || [[MC6847]] || 6K || 32x16 || BL <ref name="ReferenceC">Two gray scales of block graphic characters</ref> || No || 9 || 64x32,<ref name = "64x32">The characterset includes 8 (one set for each color) x16 characters with a 2x2 pixel matrix, with this a mixed text and semi graphics mode can be created that can display pixels in 8 colors against a black background, albeit with some [[attribute clash|color clash]]</ref> 68x48,<ref name = "68x48">Another semigraphics mode, like the 32x64 mode, but exchanging a more limited number of color for a somewhat higher resolution</ref> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96, 128x192, 128x192, 256x192 || 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2 ||?||None||?|| - || None |- | [[Commodore VIC-20]] || 1980 || [[MOS Technology VIC|VIC]] <ref>or 'Video interface controller', Pertaining to the MOS technology 6560 (NTSC version) and the 6561 (PAL version) chips. These chips did more than supporting the video display, they also provided the sound system, and had two A/D converters for its paddle game control system</ref> || 512 bytes + 512 nibbles <ref>The VIC chip in and of itself could address 16K of address space for screen and character memory. But only the 5K that points to internal RAM can be used by it on the VIC-20 (even with a RAM expansion module plugged in) without a hardware modification, and the unexpanded VIC-20 only had a grand total of 5K of which only 512 bytes was reserved for the screen; character shape data was 2K but normally came from ROM, not RAM. Color memory is nibble memory (4 bits per location) that is separate from normal RAM, because both have to be accessed at the same time.</ref> || 22x23 <ref>8x8 characters, the VIC also supported 8x16 characters</ref> || LC, BG, SG <ref>Like on the PET, 256 different characters could be displayed at a time, normally taken from one of the two character generators in ROM (one for upper-case letters and simple graphics, the other for mixed-case -- non-English characters were not provided)</ref> || Yes || 2 <ref>2, because in the usual display mode, each character position could have its foreground color chosen individually, and the background and screen border colors were set globally. A character could be made to appear in another mode where each pixel was chosen from 4 different colors: the character's foreground color, the screen background, the screen border and an "auxiliary" color; but this mode was rarely used since it made the already wide pixels twice as wide as they normally were.</ref> || 176x184 <ref>176x184 is the standard for the VIC-20 firmware, although at least 224x256 is possible on a PAL machine. The VIC chip did not provide for a direct full-screen, high-resolution graphics mode. It did, however, allow the pixel-by-pixel depictions of the on-screen characters to be redefined (by using a character generator in RAM), and it allowed for double-height characters (8 pixels wide, 16 pixels high). It was possible to get a fully addressable screen, slightly smaller (160 by 160) than normal, by filling the screen with a sequence of 200 different double-height characters, then turning on the pixels selectively inside the RAM-based character definitions. (The 200-character limitation was so that enough bytes would be left over for the screen character grid itself to remain addressable by the VIC chip.) The Super Expander cartridge provided such a mode in BASIC, although it often had to move the BASIC program around in memory to do it. It was also possible to fill a larger area of the screen with addressable graphics using a more dynamic allocation scheme, if the contents were sparse or repetitive enough.</ref> || 4 <ref>For Highres graphics modes the double wide text mode was used, which proved for four different colors per pixel in each 8x16 character tile. For each tile the colors could be chosen out of a palette of 16 colors, but the upper 8 could only be used in the global background and auxiliary colors</ref> || ?|| No <ref>not really, but something similar could be done by manipulating the four colors out of sixteen possible color chosen for each tile, or the global background color</ref> || || - ||Some <ref>The VIC-20 had hardware support for a [[Light pen]], but its most obvious feature was its text mode with very wide characters</ref> |- | [[TRS-80 Color Computer]] Models 1 & 2 <ref>There were three models, but the video display capabilities of the first two models differed only slightly</ref> || 1980 || [[MC6847]] <ref>Some later models of the CoCo models 2 used the MC6847T1.</ref> || 6K <ref>except for early 4K models of the CoCo, consequently the video modes that needed more memory were not supported</ref> || 32x16 || No <ref>Later models that used the MC6847T1. did support lower case</ref> || BG || 9 || 64x32,<ref name = "64x32"/> 68x4,8 <ref name = "68x48"/> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96, 128x192, 128x192, 256x192 || 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2 || ?||None ||?|| - || None |- | [[NEC PC-6001]] || 1981 || [[MC6847]] || 6K || 32x16 || BL <ref name="ReferenceC"/> || No || 9 || 64x32,<ref name="64x32"/> 68x48,<ref name="68x48"/> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96, 128x192, 128x192, 256x192 || 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2 ||?||None||?|| - || None |- | [[Commodore MAX Machine|Commodore MAX]] <ref>Essentially a very rare, very stripped down commodore 64 with just 2.5K RAM</ref> || 1982 || [[MOS Technology VIC-II|VIC-II]]|| 2.5K || 40x25|| LC, BG, SG || Yes || 16 || 320x200, 160x200 <ref>theoretically, note that even 160x200 in monochrome uses 4K of RAM, so only by adding external RAM high resolution could be supported</ref> || 16 ||?|| None || SP || S#= 8 SS= 24x21, 12x21 SC=1 SP=8 || Some |- | [[Commodore 64]] || 1982 || [[MOS Technology VIC-II|VIC-II]]|| 16K || 40x25|| LC, BG, SG || Yes || 16 || 320x200, 160x200 || 16 || ?|| None ||SP, SC|| S#= 8 SS= 24x21, 12x21 SC=1 SP=8 || Many |- | [[Dragon 32/64]] <ref>The dragon was virtually identical with the [[TRS-80 Color Computer]] except it had at least 32K RAM and used additional circuitry to generate a PAL signal instead of NTSC</ref> || 1982 || [[MC6847]] || 6K || 32x16 || BG || No || 9 || 64x32,<ref name = "64x32"/> 68x48,<ref name = "68x48"/> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96, 128x192, 128x192, 256x192 || 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2 || ?||None ||?|| - || None |- | [[Apple IIe]] <ref>The apple IIe used a dedicated chip to replace most of the discrete logic of the apple II, all comments for the apple II apply to the apple IIe, but the apple IIe has additional possibilities</ref> || 1983 || unknown <ref>It is not known whether the special chip for the apple IIe had a name</ref> || 19K <ref>The Apple IIe had an extra 1K of video ram for the 80 columns text mode.</ref> || 40x24, 80x24 || LC || No <ref>The apple used a hardware character generator, But could not mix text and graphics except by displaying four lines of text beneath the graphics screen, also the text was strictly black and white, so often text on the screen was displayed using software so colored text could be displayed in different fonts</ref> || Mono chrome || 40x48, 80x48,<ref>double low resolution mode, using the extra 1K text mode</ref> 280x192, 560x192 <ref>using the "resolution doubler" originally developed for the double low resolution mode, uses the second bank of high resolution RAM.</ref> || 15, 15, 6, 15 <ref>effectively the color resolution was only 140x192, due to pixel placement restriction</ref> || || None || || - || Split screen Graphics/Text <ref name = "caption"/> |- | Laser 100/110 [[Laser 200]]/210 and 310 <ref>The VTech Laser 200 was also called the "Salora Fellow" (mainly in Scandinavia, particularly Finland), the "Texet TX8000" (in the United Kingdom) and the Dick Smith "VZ 200" (in Australia and New Zealand) The Laser 100 and 110 are simpler earlier models</ref>|| 1983 || [[MC6847]] || 2K || 32x16 || BG || No || 9 || 64x32,<ref name = "64x32"/> 64x64,128x64 || 9, 4, 4<ref>On a 2x2 pixels basis, with two choices of background colors</ref> || ?||None ||?|| - ||None |- |[[Matra Alice]] (first model)<ref>The First model of the Matra Alice was an exact copy of a Tandy Model MC-10 with 4K ram</ref> || 1983 || [[Thomson EF936x|MC6847]] <ref>The original model, the later Matra Alice 32 and Matra Alice 90 had another video chip, the EF9345</ref> || 4K || 32x16 || BG || No || 9 || 64x32,<ref name = "64x32"/> 68x48,<ref name = "68x48"/> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96 || 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2 || ?||None ||?|| - ||None |- |[[TRS-80 MC-10]] || 1983 || [[MC6847]] || 4K || 32x16 || BG || No || 9 || 64x32,<ref name = "64x32"/> 68x48,<ref name = "68x48"/> 64x64, 128x64, 128x64, 128x96, 128x96, 128x192, 128x192 <ref name = "mempack">With 20K memory expansion pack only</ref> 256x192 <ref name = "mempack"/> || 9, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2 || ?||None||?|| - || None |- | [[Apple IIc]] <ref>And Apple IIc Plus, which has identical graphics capabilities</ref><ref>has all the capabilities of the Apple IIe, and an improved character set</ref> || 1984 || unknown <ref>It is not known whether the special chip for the apple IIc had a name</ref> || 19K || 40x24, 80x24 || LC <ref>The apple IIc now used a small part of the characterset to display special "mouse graphics" symbols, and the character ROM was doubled in size, so it was possible to switch to a characterset that could display extra local language characters and symbols such as accented letters such as "á", "é", "ç" etc.</ref> || No || Mono chrome || 40x48, 80x48, 280x192, 560x192 || 15, 15, 6, 15 ||?|| None || || - || Split screen Graphics/Text <ref name = "caption"/> |- | [[Commodore 16]] 116 and [[Plus/4]] || 1984 || [[MOS Technology TED|TED]]|| 8K || 40x25|| LC, BG, SG|| Yes || 16 || 320x200, 320x160,<ref name = "plus5lines">with 5 lines of text</ref> 160x200, 160x160 <ref name = "plus5lines"/> || 121 <ref>actually 256, but it has eight identical "shades" of black</ref> || || None || || - || Some <ref>Included three interval timers and a joystick port</ref> |- |[[Matra Alice|Matra Alice 32/90]] || 1984 || [[Thomson EF936x|EF9345]] || 8K || 32x16 40x25 80x25 || LC, BG || Yes <ref>3x100 user definable characters, but only in 40x25 text mode</ref> || 8 || 64x32,<ref>Using 2x3 pseudo graphic characters</ref> 160x125, 320x250 <ref>These resolutions could be achieved by "faking" them using the programmable characters</ref> || 9, 4, 4 || ?||None||DR|| - ||Video Input <ref>The Matra Alice 90 featured video-in, so EF9345 graphics could be overlaid onto the input video</ref> |- | [[PCjr]] & [[Tandy 1000]] || 1984 || "Video Gate Array" <ref>Not to be confused with [[VGA]] Also known as "CGA plus", Also based on the MC6845, and essentially the same as the video circuitry in the later [[Tandy 1000]], called the "TGA".</ref> || 32K <ref>From 2K to 96K, in fact all of the system memory could be used as Video Ram, though not all of it was also practically usable, at most 32K could be used by any video mode</ref> || 40x25, 80x25 || LC || No || 16 || 320x200, 640x200, 160x100, 160x200, 320x200, 640x200 || 4, 2, 16, 16, 16, 4 || ?|| None || || - || None |- | [[Atari ST]] || 1985 || Shifter || 32K || software || LC || Yes || 16 || 320x200, 640x200, 640x400 || 16, 4, 2 || ?||Yes 512<ref>palette of 512 colors</ref> || || - || Hi-Res non-interlaced 31 kHz-72 Hz |- | [[Commodore 128]] || 1985 || [[MOS Technology VIC-II|VIC-II]] plus [[MOS Technology 8563|VDC]] || 16K plus 16K dedicated to VDC || 40x25 and 80x25 || LC, BG, SG || Yes || 16<ref>Eight colors with two intensities in VDC modes</ref> || 320x200, 160x200 720x700 <ref>using the VDC</ref> || 16 ||?|| None ||SP, SC <ref>in C64 mode only</ref> BL <ref>the VDC supported a blitter</ref>|| S#= 8 SS= 24x21, 12x21 SC=1 SP=8 || Some<ref>Unique in that the system contained two different video circuits</ref> |- | [[Elektronika BK]] -0010/-0011 <ref>The series of Soviet home computers based on [[PDP-11]] architecture</ref>|| 1985 || [[K1801VP1-037]] <ref>A [[Video Display Controller|VDC]] by name, but it was in fact a 600-gate [[Programmable logic array|PLA]], implementing its functionality.</ref> || 16K<ref>It was one of the biggest problems of BK, which wasn't corrected even in updated -0011 model that had 128K of memory, as 16K was VP1-037's hardwired limit due to low gate count of its host PLA.</ref> || 32x25, 64x2,5 80х25 <ref name = "BK-0011">BK-0011 only. VDC lacked hardware text modes, so they were simulated in software by [[BIOS]] routines. -0011 model had updated BIOS that could display "narrow" symbols. It also had some limited palette support.</ref>|| LC || Yes || 4, 2 || 256x256, 512x256 || 4, 2 || ?||4 colors from 64<ref name = "BK-0011" /> || SC || - ||Hardware [[scrolling]] <ref>BK's VDC was rather primitive and lacked most advanced features except hardware scrolling (implemented through software-controlled [[framebuffer]] offset register). However, the fact that the screen output was almost entirely software generated, together with powerful 16-bit [[CPU]], made possible seamless integration of text and graphics with [[escape sequence]]-controlled composite output.</ref> |- |[[Apple IIgs|Apple II<small>GS</small>]] || 1986 || VGC <ref>Video Graphics Chip</ref> || 32K || 40x24, 80x24 || LC || No || 16 || 40x48, 80x48, 280x192, 560x192, 320x200, 320x200, 320x200, 640x200, 640x200, 640x200, 640x200, 640x200 || 16, 16, 6, 16, 16, 256, 3200, 4, 16, 64, 800 ||?|| Apple][ modes none, other modes 4096 || || - ||many new graphics and palette modes <ref>* 320x200 pixels with a single palette of 16 colors. * 320x200 pixels with up to 16 palettes of 16 colors. In this mode, the VGC holds 16 separate palettes of 16 colors in its own memory. Each of the 200 scan lines can be assigned any one of these palettes allowing for up to 256 colors on the screen at once. This mode is handled entirely by the VGC with no CPU assistance, making it perfect for games and high-speed animation. * 320x200 pixels with up to 200 palettes of 16 colors. In this mode, the CPU assists the VGC in swapping palettes in and out of the video memory so that each scan line can have its own palette of 16 colors allowing for up to 3200 colors on the screen at once. This mode is computationally intensive however, and is only suitable for viewing graphics or in paint programs. * 320x200 pixels with 15 colors per palette, plus a "fill mode" color. In this mode, color 0 in the palette is replaced by the last non-zero color pixel displayed on the scan line (to the left), allowing fast solid-fill graphics (drawn with only the outlines). * 640x200 pixels with four pure colors. This mode is generally only used for ensuring that the Apple logo and menu bar retain their colors in Desktop applications. * 640x200 pixels with 16 dithered colors. In this mode, two palettes of four pure colors each are used in alternating columns. The hardware then dithers the colors of adjacent pixels to create 16 total colors on the screen. This mode is generally used for programs requiring finer detail such as word processors and the Finder.</ref> |- | [[Acorn Archimedes]] <ref>All Acorn A-series machines (A300, A5000, etc) except A7000(+)</ref>|| 1987 || [[VIDC1]] || 480KB (from system RAM)|| software || LC || Yes || 256 || Flexible, e.g. 800x600 16cols || 256 || ?|| 16 groups of 16 from 4096 || || S#= 1 <ref name="for mouse pointer">for mouse pointer</ref> SS= 32x32 SC=? SP=1 || [[RISC OS]] system |- | [[IBM PS/1]]|| 1990 || "[[Video Graphics Array|VGA]]" || 128K || 80x25, 40x25, 80x43, 80x50 || LC || Yes <ref>Up to eight font sets could be stored in video memory</ref> || 16|| 640x480, 640x350, 320x200, 320x200 || 16, 16, 16, 256 || ?|| Yes <ref>16 or 256 colors out of a 262144 colors palette (6 bit per RGB channel)</ref>||SC|| - || 14" Monitor, "[[Mode X|Video tweaking]]" |- | [[Risc PC|Acorn Risc PC]] || 1994 || [[VIDC20]] || 2MB, 1MB || software || LC || Yes || 16M || Flexible, e.g. 1600x1200 256cols <ref>No fixed graphics modes, any mode can be generated by supplying timings. Modes are limited only by analogue video bandwidth, video RAM or DRAM bandwidth and minimum refresh rate monitor will accept. Definitions for common monitors are supplied up to 1600x1200x256cols.</ref> || 16M ||?|| In <=256 color modes || || S#= 1 <ref name="for mouse pointer"/> SS= 32x32 SC=? SP=1 || [[RISC OS]] system |} ===Systems using a video co-processor=== {|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name !! Year !! Chip name !! Video RAM !! Text mode(s) !! Font extras !! soft fonts !! text colors !! graphics modes !! graphics colors !! color resolution !! palette support !! HW accel !! Sprite details !! unique features |- | [[Atari 8-bit family]] <ref>Including the Atari 400, 600XL, 800/XE/XL, 65XE, 1200XL and 130XE.</ref> || 1979 || [[ANTIC]] plus [[George's Television Interface Adapter|CTIA/GTIA]] || 18K+ of 64K<ref>The extreme flexibility of the ANTIC chip meant that it could access the entire 64K of addressable memory space. But, the highest of all possible resolutions could utilize a maximum of 15K for playfield graphics, plus 2K for P/M Graphics, plus 1K for the character set. However, since multiple redefined character sets are possible the maximum amount of memory in use by Antic could be even higher than 18K</ref> || 48x24 (30), 40x24 (30), 20x24 (30), 20x12 (15) <ref>A maximum of 30 Characters can be displayed in a row in PAL. In 48 Characters Width mode, only 42-44 characters are shown on a normal TV.</ref> || LC <ref>"Lowercase with descenders" mode, which was not available through GRAPHICS, only as part of custom display lists. In this mode characters were 10 pixels high and occupied either the upper or lower 8 pixels of that height. This was not strictly speaking a 40×24 text mode, because of the unusual height.</ref> || Yes <ref>The character set was easily redirected by changing an ANTIC register, allowing the user to create their own character sets with relative ease.</ref> || 2 (5),<ref>If the 7th bit is set, the inversion replaces color 3 in 160pix width mode with a 5th freely selectable color.</ref> 2 or 5 or 16,2 or 5 or 16 || 40x24 (30), 80x48 (60), 80x96 (120), 160x96 (120), 160x192 (240), 320x192 (240), 80x192<ref>192 lines is the arbitrary default set by the Operating System when creating display lists. Custom display lists can use fewer or more lines limited to the point where the display rolls. NTSC Ataris are capable of generating 224+ lines into the display overscan area without rolling.</ref> (240) <ref>In Pal, a maximum of 240 lines are displayed.</ref> || 4, 2 or 4,16 or 256,<ref>In the 8 bits per pixel mode, Chroma is displayed every line, Luma values only displayed every 2nd line.</ref> 2 or 4, 2 or 4, 2, 9/16/16 <ref>9 colors from the color palette registers or All 15 Atari hues, but only of one brightness (plus black) or All 16 Atari shades, but only of one hue. These modes are only available on models equipped with the GTIA.</ref> || ?||9 out of 128, 16 out of 256 (with GTIA) ||SP, SC|| S#=4+4 or 5 SS=8 + 2 or 5 x256(max) SC=1 SP=4+4 or 5 || [[Display list]] |- | [[Texas Instruments TI-99/4|TI-99/4]] || 1979 || [[TMS9918]] <ref>The TI99/4 was the only system to use the old TMS9918, instead of the TMS9918A. This VDP did not support mode II graphics</ref> || 16K || 32x24 <ref name = "notintms">A 40x24 mode was theoretically possible with assembler, but was not supported in TI-BASIC</ref> || || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48 <ref>The TI-99/4 used a TMS9918 (not TMS9918A), and this older chip did not support 256x192 (mode II) Graphics</ref> ||16,16 <ref name = "genlock">Actually 15 colors, the 16th color was "transparent" and was designed to display a background video signal from a [[genlock]]</ref> ||32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- |[[Philips P2000|P2000T]] <ref>the P2000M had nothing to do with the P2000M it was a [[CP/M]] business machine without any special video attributes, just 80x24 text</ref>|| 1980 || [[SAA5243]] <ref>Essentially Philips (a TV maker) simply used a video chip used in their TV's for the display of [[Teletext]], I believe it was the SAA5243 but am not completely sure, as Philips used many different Teletext chips. If you have evidence Philips used another chip please correct.</ref> || 960 Bytes || 40x24 || LC, BG || No || 8 || 80x72 <ref>Teletext graphics, using [[text semigraphics]] characters, unlike the TRS-80 the pseudo graphics characters came in two kinds, "massive" and "separate", the first is exactly like the TRS-80, the second has each "pixel block" surrounded by a narrow line of background color</ref> || 8 ||40x24||None|| || - ||Used primitive [[Teletext]] chip designed for TV's.<ref>Used a chip designed to display [[Teletext]] in TV's. This "video co-processor" uses "serial attributes" which not only made it hard to use but also introduced the "attribute blank space" problem similar to the [[Oric 1]] (but without its high-res graphics). Additionally the chip had to be controlled through a very slow [[I2C]] interface, so In fact the graphics capabilities of the P2000T were very limited, even for that era.</ref> |- | [[NEC PC-8801]] || 1981 || SGP <ref>SGP=Super Graphic Processor</ref> || 48K || 40x20, 80x25 <ref>in hardware for earlier versions, in software for later versions using the 640x200 8 colors or 640x400 2 colors Highres options</ref> || LC || No || 8 or 2 || 320x200, 320x400, 640x200, 640x400 <ref>Very early systems with text mode displays would only support 160x100 pixels in eight colors</ref> || 2, 2, 8, 8 <ref>some versions supported 65536 (16-bit per pixel) colors</ref> || ?|| 8 or 2 out of 512||?|| - || First home computer with high resolution 640x400 support <ref>The reason for this was because a higher resolution was required to display Japanese text</ref> |- | [[Texas Instruments TI-99/4A|TI-99/4A]] || 1981 || [[TMS9918]]A <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 <ref name = "notintms"/> || <ref>No lower case support, but the TI-99/4A Did support "small characters" instead of lowercase</ref> || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48, 256x192 || 16,16 <ref name = "genlock"/>|| 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[FM-7|Fujitsu FM-7]] || 1982 || Motorola 6809 || 48K || 80x25, 80x20, 40x25, 40x20 || LC || - || 8 || 640x200 <ref name="fm7_resolution">The FM-7 used three "graphics planes", one for each primary color, each plane had one bit for each pixel, so it used 16000 bytes, so 384 bytes per plane went unused</ref> || 8 || -||None||?|| -||640x200x8 colors without color limitations <ref name="fm7_note">Due to its use of a separate 6809 processor for graphics, the FM-7 could use a massive 48K of RAM for three 16K [[bit plane]]s, each using 16,384 bytes, so each of the 640x200 pixels had three bits co call its own. The remaining 16K of RAM was used to store fonts and drawing routines. The FM-7 had no text modes, as all text was drawn in the graphics screen, so a mixing text and graphics was no problem either. To communicate with the main CPU, the FM-7 used a shared memory system not unlike the "[[Tube (BBC Micro)|tube]]" of the [[BBC Micro]].</ref> |- | [[NEC PC-9801]] / [[APC III|APC]] || 1982 || 2x [[NEC µPD7220]] <ref>One for graphics, one for text</ref> || 48K <ref>Later upgraded to 204 KB in 1983 and 256 KB in 1987</ref> || 40x20, 40x25, 80x20, 80x24, 80x25 || LC || No || 8 || 320x200, 320x400, 640x200, 640x400, 640x475, 640x494,<ref name="old-computers3">{{cite web|url=http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=333|title=OLD-COMPUTERS.COM musem ~ NEC APC|publisher=old-computers.com|accessdate=2014-11-23}}</ref><ref name="oldcomputers">{{cite web|url=http://oldcomputers.net/nec-apc.html|title=NEC APC - Advanced Personal Computer|publisher=oldcomputers.net|accessdate=2014-11-23}}</ref> 384x240, 800x240, 1024x1024 <ref name="google">{{cite book|title=InfoWorld|publisher=InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.|issn=0199-6649|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_C8EAAAAMBAJ|page=31|accessdate=2014-11-23}}</ref> || 8 <ref>Later upgraded to 16 colors in 1983 and 256 colors in 1987</ref> || ?|| 8 colors out of 512 colors <ref>Later upgraded to 16 colors out of 4096 colors in 1985, and 256 colors out of 65,536 colors in 1987.</ref> ||?|| - || First home computer to reach 640x475 high resolution,<br />early 1024x1024 highres support |- | [[Coleco Adam]] || 1983 || [[TMS9918]]A <ref name = "tmspal">the "[[Texas Instruments TMS9918]]" is actually a family of devices. The TMS9918A outputs 60 Hz NTSC composite video and TMS9928 and TMS9929 output three separate signals (Y, R-Y and B-Y) with which either a 60 Hz NTSC (TMS9928A) or a 50 Hz PAL or SECAM (TMS9929A) video signal could be created</ref> || 16K || 32x24 <ref>A 40×24 text mode is theoretically possible but is not supported in Coleco BASIC</ref> || LC || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48, 256x192, 256x160 <ref>Coleco Adam BASIC created a mode with a 256×160 pixel graphics "window" on top, and used the remaining 256×32 pixel window to create four lines of 32 characters of text</ref> || 16,16,16 ||32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918">TMS9918/28 based systems: in 32×24 text mode the character set is divided in 32 blocks of eight character. each block of eight characters can have a different foreground and background color. This can be used in games, because it is possible to generate a relatively fast high resolution mode by reprogramming the characters as 8x8 [[Tessellation|tiles]] and grouping them together in blocks of eight with the same colors. The tiles can then be manipulated quickly through the [[character pointer table]]. Sprites could be used too in this mode, and all 16 colors could be displayed at the same time. Another use is to have four identical character-sets with each 64 characters in them but with different colors. with this character set it is possible to create a 32x24 text mode that can display texts with four different foreground and background colors at the same time, on the same screen. In 256x192 graphics mode there is a 2-color limitation for each 8 pixel wide line inside a character, so this can cause some [[attribute clash]] although not as severe as on the [[ZX Spectrum]].</ref> |- | [[MSX#MSX|MSX-1]] <ref name = "MSX">MSX wasn't a single machine, but a standard that was followed by various manufacturers. Thus, specs vary between various models and standard's revisions. But from the perspective of the video hardware, all MSX-1 systems are the same, as they use the same video display generator with 16K of Video-RAM.</ref>|| 1983 || [[TMS9918]] <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC, BG, SG <ref>Except for the ASCII character set the MSX standard did not define the characterset, however most MSX systems sold in the west did have among greek and other alphabets a large set of semi graphical characters including some for block graphics. Some systems even had the pseudo graphic characters printed on their keys</ref> || Yes || 2, 16 || 64x48, 256x192|| 16, 16 || 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 || color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[Memotech MTX]] <ref>The Memotech MTX500, MTX512A and RS128 machines all have the same video capabilities</ref>|| 1983 || [[TMS9918]]A <ref name = "tmspal"/>|| 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48, 256x192 || 16,16 || 32x192||None ||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[SG-1000#SC-3000|Sega SC-3000]] || 1983 || [[TMS9918|TMS9929]] <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC, BG, SG || Yes || 2, 16 || 64x48, 256x192|| 16, 16 || 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[Sord M5]] || 1983 || [[TMS9918]] <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC, BG, SG || Yes || 2, 16 || 64x48, 256x192|| 16, 16 || 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[SV-318]] || 1983 || [[TMS9918]]A <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC, BG, SG || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48, 256x192 || 16,16 || 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[SV-328]] || 1983 || [[TMS9918]]A <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC, BG, SG || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48, 256x192 || 16,16 || 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- | [[Tatung Einstein]] || 1984 || [[TMS9918|TMS9129]] <ref name = "tmspal"/> || 16K || 32x24 40x24 || LC, BG, SG || Yes || 2,16 || 64x48, 256x192 || 16,16 || 32x192||None||SP|| S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=1 SP=4 ||color limitations <ref name = "TMS9918"/> |- |[[Enterprise (computer)|Enterprise 64]] <ref>and Enterprise 128, which is the same machine, only with more memory, also known as DPC, Samurai, Oscar, Elan and Flan</ref> || 1985 || Nick || 64K || 40x24, 80x32 or 28, 84x64 <ref>84x56 interlaced</ref> || LC || Yes|| 2 or 4 || 640x256, 320x256, 160x256, 80x256 <ref>In "LORES" mode using half as much memory, the horizontal resolution is halved, while the number of colors remain the same.</ref>|| 2, 4, 16, 256 ||?|| Yes <ref>In any mode except 256 color mode, you could choose the colors for the restricted set out of the 256 available colors</ref> || || - || Advanced for its time <ref>The Enterprises "Nick" chip could be programmed to do more than the built in software supported, so the mentioned resolutions are meant as what the built in software supported, not as what the hardware could actually do, its very hard to get reliable data as to what the "Nick" chip could actually do. These figures are gathered from the "Enterprise programming guide"</ref> |- | [[Amiga|Commodore Amiga]] (first generation) <ref>Pertaining to the Amiga 1000, Amiga 2000 and Amiga 500 machines</ref> || 1985 | [[Amiga Original chipset#Agnus|Agnus]] <ref name="ReferenceB">For DMA memory access and Blitter functions, and a Copper (co-processor), a programmable finite state machine that executes a programmed instruction stream, synchronized with the video hardware</ref> and [[Amiga Original chipset#Denise|Denise]] <ref>the main video processor. Without using overscan, the display was 320 (lowres) or 640 (hires) pixels wide by 200 (NTSC) or 256 (PAL) tall. It also supported interlacing which doubled the vertical resolution. Anything between 2 and 32 unique colors (1 to 5 bitplanes) from a 12 bit (4096 color) palette, was supported. A 6th bitplane was available for either the Halfbrite mode that added a copy of the first 32 colors but with half the intensity or Hold And Modify mode which allowed access to all 4096 colors at once. Denise supported eight sprites, smooth scrolling, and "dual playfield". For more information see [[Original Amiga chipset]].</ref> ||1M "chip ram" <ref>Older versions could only access 512K chip ram</ref> || Any textsize up to 80x32 <ref name = "softtext Amiga">All text output rendered by Blitter or software in any graphics mode</ref> || LC || Yes || 2 to 32, 64 <ref name = "halvebright">in "halfbright mode". Extra Half-Brite (EHB) mode uses 6 bitplanes (6 bits/pixel), where the first 5 bitplanes index a color from the color palette (consisting of 32 colors). If the bit on the 6th plane is set the color brightness is halved for each color component. This way 64 simultaneous colors are possible while only using 32 color palette registers.</ref> || 320x200, 640x200 (and 320x400, 640x400 interlaced) <ref name = "Apalmode">320x256, 640x256, 320x512 and 640x512 in PAL mode</ref> ||2 to 32, 64 <ref name = "halvebright"/> and 4096 <ref>Using "hold and modify" (HAM-6) mode, a mode specially designed for displaying photos, see [[Hold-and-Modify]]</ref> ||?||2 to 32 colors out of 4096 colors ||BL, SP, SC, DR|| S#=8 <ref name = "asprites">The Amiga's hardware engine supports only 8 sprites, but with copper support, can present the illusion of many more. Each sprite is drawn in a certain position, until the raster beam has passed it; the copper can then instantly change its location and appearance, moving it below the raster beam again</ref> SS=16 wide, arbitrary height SC=3 or 15 <ref name ="Aspritesize">3 colors (plus a fourth transparent "color"). Two sprites could be attached to make a single 15-color sprite.</ref> SP= 8 ||Many unique features <ref name = "anu">Too many to mention, see [[Original Amiga chipset]]</ref> |- | [[FM-7|Fujitsu FM-77 AV]] || 1985 || Fujitsu MMR, <ref>Memory Mapping Register</ref> Motorola 6809 || 96K <ref>VRAM later increased to 144 KB in 1986 and 192 KB in 1987</ref> || 80x25, 80x20, 40x25, 40x20, 40x11 || LC || Yes || 8 to 4096 || 320x200, 640x200,<ref name="fm7_resolution"/> 640x400 || 8 to 4096 || ? || 8 to 4096 colors out of 4096 colors <ref>Maximum palette later increased to 262,144 colors in 1987</ref> || ? || ? || First home computer with 4096 on-screen color graphics, <ref>[http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/personal/0017.html FM-77 AV], IPSJ Computer Museum</ref> 640x400x8 colors without color limitations <ref name="fm7_note"/> |- | [[MSX#MSX_2|MSX-2(+)]] <ref>Second revision of [[MSX]] standard, significantly extending the machine's capabilities. Most notable change was the so called [[Yamaha V9938|MSX-video chip]] -- an upgraded version of [[TMS9918]] [[Video Display Controller|VDP]], used in MSX-1 machines, and corresponding memory upgrade. Here it also includes MSX-2+ standard, which was an incremental upgrade, and MSX TurboR that had the same video hardware as 2+.</ref> || 1986 || [[Yamaha V9938]],<br />[[Yamaha V9958]] ||64K, 128K,<br />or 192K <ref>Depending on manufacturer or revision.</ref>|| 32x24 40x24 80x24 <ref name = "MSX-Video">All text modes can actually have 26.5 rows, but these modes aren't supported by [[MSX BASIC]]. Similarly, all 192-lines graphics modes have 212-lines versions, as they are inherently tied to the text ones. All graphics modes can also be doubled in vertical resolution by interlacing, so highest available resolution was actually 512x414</ref>|| LC, BG, SG || Yes || 2, 4, 16 || 64x48, 256x192, 512x192, </br> 256x212, 512x212 <ref name = "MSX-Video"/>|| 16, 16/256, 16, 16/256, 16 <ref>MSX-2+ machines were able to display 19268 colors in some modes</ref>||?||2 to 16 out of 512 colors ||SP, SC,<ref>MSX2 only supports horizontal scrolling, MSX2+ supports both horizontal and vertical scrolling</ref> BL, DR || S#=32 SS=8x8, 16x16 SC=16 SP=4 || Many unique features <ref>MSX-2 machines and higher featured advanced [[Video Display Controller|VDP]], that was somewhat similar in abilities to the [[Amiga original chipset|Amiga]] one. It was able to do hardware-accelerated [[scrolling]], [[bit blit|bit copy (with logical operations)]], line drawing, area-filling, and even included limited [[video overlay|overlay]] support. [[Sprite (computer graphics)|Sprite]] engine was especially powerful, allowing preprogrammed movement of multicolored (up to 16 colors) sprites. Several VDP exception, such as sprite collision and backtracking, invoked hardware [[interrupt]]s, that, with skillful manipulation of VDP registers, allowed for many visual tricks.</ref> |- |[[Sharp X68000]] || 1987 || VINAS 1 + 2, VSOP, CYNTHIA / Jr, RESERVE <ref name="x68_gpu">The two main CRT Controller chips were called "VINAS 1 + 2"; later models used a chip called VICON. The "Video Controller" was called "VSOP", and was later upgraded to the "VIPS". The separate "Sprite Controller" was called "CYNTHIA / Jr" in its first incarnation, with its upgrade later called just "CYNTHIA". Last, but not least, there was the "Video Data Selector" first called "RESERVE", with its upgrade later called "CATHY".</ref>|| 1072K <ref name="x68_vram">512KB Text VRAM, 512KB Graphic VRAM, 32KB Sprite VRAM, 16KB SRAM (Static RAM)</ref> || from 16x16 to 128x128 <ref name="x68_text">The X68000 had a separate 768KB Character Generator ROM, with fonts for 16x16, 8x16, 8x8 and JIS 1 + 2 characters.</ref> || LC, Kanji || Yes <ref name="x68_soft">software rendered</ref> || 16 to 65,536 || 256x240, 256x256, 512x240, 512x256, 512x512, 640x480, 768x512, 1024x1024 || 16 to 65,536 ||?||16 to 65,536 colors out of 65,536 colors ||SC, SP|| S#=128-512<br />SS=16x16 SC=16 SP=32 || Special hardware options,<br />hardware scrolling,priority control, [[Superimposition|super-impose]],<br />[[2.5D|sprite scaling]], [[Arcade game|arcade]] quality [[2D]] graphics |- |[[FM Towns|Fujitsu FM Towns]] || 1989 || Custom || 656K <ref name="fmt_ram">512 KB main VRAM, 128 KB sprite RAM, 16 KB text RAM</ref> || from 40x25 to 80x25 || LC, Kanji || Yes || 16 to 32,768 || 256x256, 320x240, 352x232, 360x240, 640x400, 640x480, 1024x768, 1024x1024, 1120x750 || 16 to 32,768 || ? || 16 to 32,768 colors out of 16,777,216 colors ||SC, SP|| S#=1024 SS=16x16 || [[2.5D|Sprite zooming]], screen rotation, graphics overlay <ref name="fmt_features">[http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=968&st=1] [http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=384]</ref> |- | [[Amiga|Commodore Amiga]] (second generation) <ref>Pertaining to the Amiga 3000 machines</ref> | 1990 || [[MOS Technology Agnus|Super-Agnus]] <ref name="ReferenceB"/> and Hires Denise <ref>Could do all the things the original Agnus chip could and added support for Productivity (640×480 noninterlaced) and Super Highres (1280×200 or 1280×256) display modes, which were however limited to only 4 colors. Also the blitter could copy regions larger than 1024×1024 pixels in one operation. Sprites could be displayed in border regions (outside of any display window where bitplanes are shown).</ref> |2M "chip ram" |Any textsize up to 160x32<ref name = "softtext Amiga" /> |LC |Yes |2 to 32, 64, (4 in super highres) <ref>Four colors only in the new "super resolution" modes</ref> |320x200, 640x200, 320x400, 640x400,<ref>Now In non interlaced too</ref> 1280x200, 1280x256 |2 to 32, 64 and 4096 |? |2 to 32 colors out of 4096 colors |BL, SP, SC, DR |S#=8 SS=16 wide, arbitrary height SC=2 or 15 SP=8 |even more unique features <ref>Even more features than the original chipset, see [[Original Amiga chipset]]</ref> |- | [[Amiga|Commodore Amiga]] (Third generation) <ref>used in the CD32, Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000.</ref> | 1992 || [[Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture|Advanced Graphics Architecture]] (AGA) <ref>AGA is able to do 8-bit pixels, which gives 256 colors in normal display mode and 262144 colors in HAM-8 (Hold-And-Modify) mode (18-bit color, 6 bits per RGB channel). Palette for AGA chipset is 256 entries from 16,777,216 colors (24-bit). The original Amiga chipset (OCS) had 4096 colors (12-bit, 4 bits per RGB channel), of which 32 could be displayed unless in half-bright (which provided an additional 32 colors fixed at half the brightness of the first 32) or HAM mode.</ref> |2M "chip ram" |Any textsize up to 160x32<ref name = "softtext Amiga" /> |LC |Yes |2 to 256 (including super highres). |NTSC: 320x200 .. 1280x400. PAL: 320x256 .. 1280x512. VGA: 640x480. Super72: 400x300 .. 800x600 (interlaced) |2 to 256, 4096 and 262,144 <ref>Using "hold and modify" (HAM-8) mode, a new super high color mode [[Hold-and-Modify]]</ref> |? |2 to 256 colors out of 16,777,216 colors |BL, SP, SC, DR |S#=8 SS=64 wide, arbitrary height SC=2 or 15 SP=8 |still more unique features <ref>Other features added to AGA over ECS were superhires smooth scrolling and 32-bit fast page memory fetches to supply the graphics data bandwidth for 8 bitplane graphics modes and wider sprites see [[Advanced Graphics Architecture]], the [[Amiga CD32|CD32]] has an Akiko bitmap to planar conversion chip</ref> |- | [[Atari Falcon]] | 1992 || VIDEL, COMBEL (Blitter) |1M to 14M "chip ram" |Any textsize up to 160x32 |LC |Yes |2 to 65536 |CRT: 320x200 to 1600x608 VGA: 640x480, 800x608 |2,4,16,256 (indexed), 32768 (+overlay), 65536 (Hi-Color) |? |2 to 65536 colors out of 262,144 colors |BL | - |scan doubler |- |[[FM Towns|Fujitsu FM Towns II]] || 1994 || Custom || 656K <ref name="fmt_ram"/> || from 40x25 to 80x25 || LC, Kanji || Yes || 256 to 16,777,216 [http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/personal/0056.html] || 256x256, 320x240, 352x232, 360x240, 640x400, 640x480, 1024x768, 1024x1024, 1120x750 || 256 to 16,777,216 || ? || 256 to 16,777,216 colors out of 16,777,216 colors || SC, SP || S#=1024 SS=16x16 || [[2.5D|Sprite zooming]], screen rotation, graphics overlay <ref name="fmt_features"/> |- |[[Risc PC]] <ref>Such as [[Acorn A7000]] and [[Acorn Archimedes]]</ref> || 1994 || VIDC20 <ref>The VIDC20 works together with an external memory controller which feeds it video data using a DMA mechanim, The VIDC20 also is used to generate sound</ref>|| 308K <ref>In fact, all of available memory of the system could be used. 308K corresponds to the standard video mode using the largest amount of memory (896x352, 256 colors)</ref> || 132x32 max.<ref>Text was generated in software, so very many text resolutions existed</ref> || LC || Yes || up to 256 <ref>In fact the VDC20 could easily do a 16,777,216 color mode, but that was not supported by most Risc PC's</ref> || 21 modes from 640x256 to 1280x960 || 2, 16, 256 ||?|| Yes, 256 28 bit entries <ref>The hardware cursor had its own 4 entry 28-bit palettes, each palette entry controlled the three 8-bit RGB entries, and four "extension" bits, so in fact the VIDC20 could easily do [[List_of_monochrome_and_RGB_palettes#24-bit_RGB|24-bit "true color" mode]]</ref> || || - ||Flexible, for CRT and LCD <ref>also used as a sound system, compatible with the older VIDC10 and with [[I2S|serial codecs]]</ref> |- |[[Sharp X68000|Sharp X68060]] || 1994 || VICON, VIPS, CYNTHIA, CATHY, <ref name="x68_gpu"/> TS-6BGA, Jupiter-X 060turbo || 3.05M <ref name="x68_vram"/> [http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:ts-6bga_-_pcm_sound_board_graphics_accelerator] || from 16x16 to 128x128 <ref name="x68_text"/> || LC, Kanji || Yes <ref name="x68_soft"/> || 256 to 16,777,216 || 256x240, 256x256, 512x240, 512x256, 512x512, 640x480, 768x512, 1024x1024 || 256 to 16,777,216 || ? || 256 to 16,777,216 colors out of 16,777,216 colors || SC, SP || S#=1024 SS=16x16 SC=16 SP=32 || Hardware [[Side-scrolling|scrolling]], priority control, super-impose, [[2.5D|sprite scaling]], [[Arcade game|arcade]] quality [[2D]] graphics |- |[[NEC PC-98|NEC PC-9821]] || 1995 || [[NEC]] / [[Hudson]] [[PC-FX|PC-FXGA]] [http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.retropc.net/yasuma/V2/PC/GA/C/pc-fxga.html] || 2M to 8.25M <ref>2-4 MB default VRAM. Additional 4.25 MB VRAM with PC-FXGA graphics accelerator card: 2 MB main VRAM, 1 MB frame buffer RAM, 1.25 MB fast-page DRAM (Dynamic RAM).</ref> || 40x20, 40x25, 80x20, 80x24, 80x25 [http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=404] [http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=403&st=1] || LC, Kanji || Yes || 256 to 16,777,216 || from 256x224 to 1280x768 || 256 to 16,777,216 [http://www.vgmuseum.com/systems/pcfx/] ||?|| 256 to 16,777,216 colors out of 16,777,216 colors || SP, SC, DR || ? || 100,000 [[3D]] polygons per sec, 10 million pixels per sec, [[Nintendo 64|N64]] quality 3D performance [http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=800.5;wap2] |- !System name !! Year !! Chip name !! Video RAM !! Text mode(s) !! Font extras !! soft fonts !! text colors !! graphics modes !! graphics colors !! color resolution !! palette support !! HW accel !! Sprite details !! unique features |} ===Systems that could not be classified=== For these systems it could not be established on what technology they are based. If you know more about the actual hardware used by these systems, then please move them to the correct class. {|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" !System name !! Year !! Chip name !! Video RAM !! Text mode(s) !! Font extras !! soft fonts !! text colors !! graphics modes !! graphics colors !! color resolution !! palette support !! HW accel !! Sprite details !! unique features |- | [[Hitachi]] MB-6890 Basic Master Level 3 [http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=2] [http://classictech.wordpress.com/tag/hitachi/] || 1980 || ? || 16K || 40x25, 80x28 || ? || No || 8 || 80x100, 160x100, 160x200, 320x200, 640x200 || 8 || ? || 8 || ? || - || First home computer with high resolution 640x200 support <ref>The reason for this was because a higher resolution was often required to display certain Japanese characters</ref> |- | [[Sord Computer Corporation|Sord M100 ACE]] || 1978 || Graphic card || 16K || 80x25<ref>[http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=791 Sord M-100 ACE]</ref> || ? || ? || 8 || 80x25, 256x64 || 8 || 80x25, 256x64 || 8 || ? || - || |- | [[Sord Computer Corporation|Sord M170 ACE]] || 1978 || Graphic card || 16K, ? || 64x24,<ref>[http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=469 Sord M 170]</ref> 80x25 || ? || ? || 8 || 64x24, 80x25, 160x256, 320x256 || 2, 8 || 64x24, 80x25, 160x256 (color), 320x256 (monochrome) || 2, 8 || ? || - ||First home computer with 320x256 resolution support |- | [[Sord Computer Corporation|Sord M200]] || 1977 || AMD9511 || ? || 80x24<ref>[http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/personal/0087.html 【Sord】 M200 Smart Home Computer Series]</ref> || ? || ? || ? || 80x24, ? || - || ? || || ? || - ||One of the first home computers with CRT display |} == See also == * [[List of home computers]] * [[List of early microcomputers]] * [[List of palettes]] - [[List of palettes#List of computer hardware palettes|List of computer hardware palettes]] section * [[Semi graphical characters]] * [[Text semigraphics]] * [[Video Display Controller]] * [[Graphics processing unit]] ==Notes== {{reflist|2}} == External links == *[http://oldcomputers.net/index.html Obsolete technology website] — Information about many old computers. *[http://old-computers.com/ old-computers.com] — Web Site dedicated to old computers. {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Home Computers By Video Hardware}} [[Category:Home computers|*List of home computers by video hardware]] [[Category:Computing-related lists|Home computers by video hardware]] [[Category:Retrocomputing]] [[Category:Graphics hardware]] [[Category:Graphics chips]] [[Category:Video game development]]
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