A report on the bleeding edge home console graphics from the mid 70s.
Magnavox and Intel: An Odyssey
Magnavox and Intel: An Odyssey
Intel 8244 - Cutting edge graphics...circa 1976
- Thread starter Simon F
- Start date
Heh. Even compared to a NES it's ridiculous.
It is somewhat similar (but certainly less capable) to C64 graphics output (VIC).
16 colors, 8 sprites - god I still remember programming balloon sprite in basic/machine code
! That was fun! Knowing at least half of computer registers from memory, programming in ASM, generating music on SID ...
Whoah. I actually played the game shown on page 2, with the cowboy and the weirdo mushrooms/bushes/whatever. In 2-player mode it was a hoot! You fired shots that bounced on the shrooms, sometimes erratically or even back into yourself, and tried to down the other cowboy.
The cowboys had the most hilarious walking animation I've ever seen, it looked as if they skated about the place, it was enough to bring my 13-ish year old self to laughter just by watching the guys move about the screen.
Surely someone should bring this game out for the Wii, it really was awesome. Update it with more retro sound effects, higher rez/larger playfield, four-player action and some tacky oldschool speech synthesis and it would be even better...
Trivia: in Europe, these machines were sold under the Philips brand name, with slightly modified case appearance as I recall. There was also a version with a built-in B/W CRT monitor of about 9-10 inches size...
One of the available titles was a very lavishly packaged version of the Ring of the Niebelungen with a spiffy game manual, maps and charts etc that was utterly incomprehensible to play. I couldn't make head nor tails of it, always got lost and killed by whatever random mob I came across, and I believe the whole game was actually broken as designed.
But the packaging was top-notch...
The cowboys had the most hilarious walking animation I've ever seen, it looked as if they skated about the place, it was enough to bring my 13-ish year old self to laughter just by watching the guys move about the screen.
Surely someone should bring this game out for the Wii, it really was awesome. Update it with more retro sound effects, higher rez/larger playfield, four-player action and some tacky oldschool speech synthesis and it would be even better...
Trivia: in Europe, these machines were sold under the Philips brand name, with slightly modified case appearance as I recall. There was also a version with a built-in B/W CRT monitor of about 9-10 inches size...
One of the available titles was a very lavishly packaged version of the Ring of the Niebelungen with a spiffy game manual, maps and charts etc that was utterly incomprehensible to play. I couldn't make head nor tails of it, always got lost and killed by whatever random mob I came across, and I believe the whole game was actually broken as designed.
But the packaging was top-notch...
Blazkowicz
Legend
They were under the Philips and Brandt names, and called Videopac. Those consoles are worse than the Atari 2600 and their keyboard never gets used (at all)
Errh, the 2600 didn't even have a framebuffer, the CPU had to spend cycles drawing everything into some video chip registers... To say it rocked is a bit of an overexaggeration in my book, but it certainly is a classic, I'll grant that.
As much as this Videopac whatever abomination may have sucked, the cowboy game was still a ton of fun. Or was, in the misty distant reaches of the first half of the 80s, haha.
As much as this Videopac whatever abomination may have sucked, the cowboy game was still a ton of fun. Or was, in the misty distant reaches of the first half of the 80s, haha.
Heh. Even compared to a NES it's ridiculous.
Now imagine how in roughly 20 years from now today's graphics will look like.....
Today's graphics will surely fare much better compared to what we'll have in 20 years, than how things looked 20 years ago compared to now...
We're already well into the realm of diminishing returns. Things don't look photo-realistic, but the best stuff games offer are already quite realistic anyway. The state of the art of home computer 3D in the late 80s were mostly flight sims and various David Braben games, using flat-shaded polygons and typically running at single-digit framerates. Humanoid characters were almost completely unheard of, due to their complexity in rendering.
We're already well into the realm of diminishing returns. Things don't look photo-realistic, but the best stuff games offer are already quite realistic anyway. The state of the art of home computer 3D in the late 80s were mostly flight sims and various David Braben games, using flat-shaded polygons and typically running at single-digit framerates. Humanoid characters were almost completely unheard of, due to their complexity in rendering.
I wouldn't bet on it. Today's displayed results are only 2D
Iron Tiger
Regular
And you have to use your eyes to see them.I wouldn't bet on it. Today's displayed results are only 2D
