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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : PicoMite vs CGA....
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
How far we have come. Hopefully it will continue, provided that global nuclear war does not break out from Russia etc. Original CGA graphics card:  Wow..... Look at all those chips, just to produce 4-bit colour.... LINK if anyone wants to read about old CGA... Now we have the PicoMite VGA, which essentially produces the same 4-bit colour of CGA, albeit via a VGA connector, and it is all done in ONE chip, along with the MMBASIC interpreter and all its features.....also in the one chip.  How far we have come. Hopefully we will all survive and not be wiped out by a nuclear war that seems to be brewing from Russia and China. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| zeitfest Guru  Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 581 |
So after four decades we still have crappy graphics !!!!!! and a special "debug" connection....forgive my jaded humor  |
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Geoffg Guru Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3292 |
Wow, that card is packed with chips. Such a huge effort to produce low grade graphics. Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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| Michal Senior Member  Joined: 02/02/2022 Location: PolandPosts: 125 |
Hi, Why only CGA, the whole PC can emulate? By the way, from what I remember some first PC-s just started with BASIC(BASICA). Michal Edited 2022-03-03 00:19 by Michal |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4044 |
Yes. Very cheaply. With far more features. Or you can spend the same as four decades ago and get an amazing system. It's a choice. We're incredibly lucky and privileged to have that. John |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
The PC couldn't emulate much at that time :) It was very under-powered, hence the use of the 6845 display chip and a lot of RAM chips to make up 16KB. RAM was *very* expensive. IIRC the very early IBM PCs included BASIC in ROM. Some versions were sold without a floppy drive. Those booted into BASIC. If you installed a flooppy, or bought a floppy-equipped version, you had DOS instead so the built-in BASIC wasn't used. You could disconnect the floppy drive to get ROM BASIC back. :) When we were running the Nascom computers a colour display of any sort was a dream. The number of people who talked about finding a way to connect Sinclair's new Spectrum onto a Nascom-2 was amazing... Later there was the Pluto card, but the price was astronomical - probably in the low thousands nowadays - and it wasn't all that high a resolution. Edited 2022-03-03 01:06 by Mixtel90 Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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lew247 Guru Joined: 23/12/2015 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1702 |
The first computer I used was programmed with a length of punch card that loaded basic into it and there was no display the computer had 4K of memory and input was the keyboard and the only output was to a printer "college in 1976" |
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| Tinine Guru Joined: 30/03/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1646 |
Pretty sure that all I did was leave the DOS floppy out for it to switch to the ROM BASIC. Not sure after I installed the huge 20MB hard drive but I was on QuickBasic by then  |
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vegipete Guru Joined: 29/01/2013 Location: CanadaPosts: 1132 |
Grogster's posted photos could be deceptive, so here they are combined, with the Pico to scale:  Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
I know what you're up to... you're considering swapping the 6845 for one emulated on a Pico to turbo-charge the board! Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| zeitfest Guru Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 581 |
I will grudgingly admit that there are now graphics on PC's etc that are eye-poppingly good. A bit better than the old stored-image tube !! So...just whack one of these onto it... |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2950 |
Hi All, I have had a DELL XPS8940 with RTX3080 for over a year now. But never really played anything that revved up the GPU, Dex would spin the fans faster when manipulating 3D models. However I recently played a game and saw a setting for Raytracing so I thought I would enable it. Whilst the image quality was better (not overly so on the game in question -INDUSTRIA I think-) my feet started heating up dramatically. I could not believe how much heat it pumped out. Anyway Catch you all later in Bit bucket land Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
What trigged me to post this thread, was that I had just watched an update to an abandoned computer warehouse place on YT, and in that video, they found a box of old Hercules graphics cards, which, from memory, were just plain green-screen only, but even THEY had a huge number of chips just for one single colour!  PART ONE... PART TWO... These videos are simply amazing if you are even slightly interested in old computers. First one is most amazing to me, as there are literally piles and piles of old computer stuff in there, so much so, that they could barely move around. Fascinating. I may well have posted a link to part one back in 2019 when it was uploaded to YT, but I link to both here, so get yourself a drink of whatever you like, sit down and prepare to walk down memory lane.  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| al18 Senior Member Joined: 06/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 228 |
There's an update to Computer Reset on LGR's YouTube channel https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwif8cGnlKn2AhUSc98KHdT_AZoQwqsBegQIPxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DK-ZZkZk9QRk&usg=AOvVaw0MkWK09FnuwKledT8wtn-a Computer Reset's warehouse was organized largely by volunteers. They periodically open the store to groups who have signed up in advance, and for $125 you can walkout with whatever you want. The best stuff is long gone |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
....404 not found error.... Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
Are you going to do a backpack to connect the PicoMite? Will you be releasing the Gerbils? ;) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| Michal Senior Member Joined: 02/02/2022 Location: PolandPosts: 125 |
GWBASIC was added on a DOS floppy. Michal |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
Huh?  ....I think you mean Gerbers. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
@ vegipete - Sorry I did not acknowledge your post initially, but it is excellent. Thank you for uploading that image, as it shows dramatically the size-vs-power of hardware advancement. Honk! Honk! Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Tinine Guru Joined: 30/03/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1646 |
This appears to be it. Wow, watching this stuff makes me feel better about all my cr@p Craig |
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