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#cga#compositevideo#artifactcolors

CGA Graphics - Not as bad as you thought!

The 8-Bit Guy

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Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

2.3M views10 years ago7 recommendations

Graphics and audioHistory and cultureRenderingRetro computing

David Murray explains how IBM's CGA graphics system used composite video artifacting to display more colors than its nominal palette.

Support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/8BitGuy1?ty=h In this episode I cover the IBM CGA graphics system from 1981.

Why it's here

7 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an excellent explanation of how retro developers used composite video artifacting to get extra colors out of CGA.

JordiGHon Lobsters • Recommends

CGA Graphics - Not as bad as you thought!
11View on Lobsters

djsumdogon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Secret colours of the Commodore 64”

If you want to see how this type of colour magic works in video form, the 8-bit guy does a GREAT video on this: link to this video He shows all the interesting artifacting that makes these extra colours possible.
View on Hacker News

qwertyuiop924on Hacker News • Recommends

On “A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art (2015)”

That's a thing more relevant on PC: this video has some more information on the phenomenon (I think) you're talking about: link to this video
View on Hacker News

geckoon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Polygons of Another World: IBM PC”

CGA colors were designed for display on composite; the issue is most people were using digital cables, which had the garish colors. link to this video has a great overview of what was possible.
View on Hacker News

jandreseon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Why do color TVs make black and white snow?”

The 8-Bit guy did a great piece on CGA that goes into detail about how old developers abused the fuzzy smeary nature of composite signals to output somewhat decent graphics. The tricks however didn't work when people upgraded to proper monitors and as a result a lot of CGA games look much worse today than they did on the intended equipment of the day. link to this video
View on Hacker News

laumarson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade EGA/VGA Comparison”

Bare in mind the displays of the time would have blended the pixels. Likewise those who complain that CGA is “only 4 awful colours” have clearly never used a proper CGA system the way it was originally intended. The following YouTube video does a good job describing what CGA was really like back in the day: link to this video
View on Hacker News

nzachon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit [video]”

Your comment got me thinking: "Wouldn't be nice if existed an 'awesome list' for this kind of content?" After a brief google search the best I could find is this 0 and it seems to be abandoned. Does anyone know a better source for this type of content? I'm leaving some random links to great channels that produce this kind of content: - CGA Graphics - Not as bad as you thought! 1 - DVD-RAM: The Disc that Behaved like a Flash Drive 2 - The Story of Super Mario Bros. 3 | Gaming Historian 3 0 - link 1 - link to this video 2 - link 3 - link
View on Hacker News

Ekaroson Hacker News • Mentions

On “A new line drawing method for the cycle savvy”

link to this video You can make funny tricks when passing image as composite. Where with those you can produce other colours. And state of computers were quite limited and primitive then. On other hand for business use, those are still acceptable, everything was text anyway.
View on Hacker News

johannes1234321on Hacker News • Mentions

On “The IBM 5153's True CGA Palette and Color Output”

One thing about CGA is that it was meant to be output via composite video instead of VGA-style RGBI. This video demonstrates the difference: link to this video
View on Hacker News

lomaseon Hacker News • Mentions

On “The effect of CRTs on pixel art”

Did you ever played a ms-dos game in CGA mode? It was not suposed to look like that! link to this video Developers did definitly took advantages of everything they could to show more colors on the screen, remember all those demos?
View on Hacker News

actionfromafaron Hacker News • Mentions

On “The effect of CRTs on pixel art”

PC monitors with RGB were a different ballgame, at least at that low resolution there was no distortion or bluriness as you say. Even PCs had games for composite video: link to this video TVs though, especially on RF, were pretty darn blurry.
View on Hacker News