| |
Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5086 |
Graphic Booster for the c128
anyone ever heard of this piece of hardware ? (see the links) This is totally new to me and I am shocked, this stuff really existed? I would love to get my hands on one!
http://www.hwhunpage.hu/images/commodore/Advert_GraphicBooster_..
http://www.hwhunpage.hu/images/commodore/Advert_GraphicBooster_.. |
|
| |
Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
I remember I read about this in the Happy Computer (?) magazine, back then. IIRC the only software that ever supported the hardware was this CAD alike graphic program that came with it. Never saw it running in action though. |
| |
Dishy
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 241 |
...I had a c128 back then, but I´ve never heard about this one before..
Dishy - keep the c64 alive - Dishy |
| |
Ninja
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 411 |
I even had this device years ago. But then my C128 broke down and the bloke repairing it for me secretly replaced it. I realized this way too late and today I could kick my own ass for that :(
|
| |
Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
afaik the graphicbooster is a software vdc enhancement. the hardware was only an upgrade from 16 to 64kb vdc mem. |
| |
Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5086 |
Graham: so a stock vdc can do 720x700x7200 of a 65536 palette ? maybe it can do 720x700 but I dont believe the it could do that many colors :)
Ninja:could you tell a bit more about it ? what it could do, etc, what monitor it needed, was it a vdc replacement, or really just 64k ? |
| |
Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Googling for "c128 graphic booster" gave me this link as the first search result:
http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~neuvians/GFX.htm :-)
This looks interesting as well, use babelfish.altavista.com to translate it into english:
http://www.c128.net/gb128.htm
The latter page even has a software-only clone of the graphic-booster 128 available for download. As I understand it this requires no hardware add-ons, just a C128 with 64K VDC RAM. |
| |
Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
Oswald: 720x700 itself is no problem with standard vdc. afaik the graphicbooster was only a basic extension with support for wicked gfx modes. as for the colors: you can force some monitors to do different shades of colors by messing with the sync signals. i did that myself, but didnt found it too stable because it doesnt work the same on every monitor. i guess thats the "65536" colors they talk about, because every graphic i have seen in graphicbooster advertisements were monochrome with colorfade in the background. |
| |
Ninja
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 411 |
Oswald: I wasn't too experienced back then. There was an additional board where the VDC was plugged onto. I had some demo-programs showing fractals. It worked on my monochrome monitor. That's all I can recall about it. But I guess, the articles on the websites mentioned are true, anyway. |
