The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200's launch. Created to compete with Mattel's Intellivision, the 5200 wound up a direct competitor of ColecoVision shortly after its release. While the Coleco system shipped with the first home version of Nintendo's Donkey Kong, the 5200 included the 1978 arcade game Super Breakout which had already appeared on the Atari 8-bit computers and Atari VCS in 1979 and 1981 respectively.
The Original Chip Set (OCS) is a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities. It was succeeded by the slightly improved Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) and the greatly improved Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA).
Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics where background images move past the camera more slowly than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera technique used in traditional animation since the 1930s.
The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. It is the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, enabling more advanced graphics and sound than most of its contemporaries. Video games are key to its software library, and the 1980 first-person space combat simulator Star Raiders is considered the platform's killer app.
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. The term can now refer to the computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector, or the 640 × 480 resolution characteristic of the VGA hardware.
A vertical blank interrupt is a hardware feature found in some legacy computer systems that generate a video signal. Cathode-ray tube based video display circuits generate vertical blanking and vertical sync pulses when the display picture has completed and the raster is being returned to the start of the display. With VBI, the vertical blank pulse is also used to generate an interrupt request for the computer's microprocessor.
The VIC-II, specifically known as the MOS Technology 6567/6566/8562/8564, 6569/8565/8566 (PAL), is the microchip tasked with generating Y/C video signals and DRAM refresh signals in the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 home computers.
The Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card for the IBM PC and established a de facto computer display standard.
The Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) is the custom computer chip, along with a variant of the MOS Technology 6502 constituting the heart of the 1977 Atari Video Computer System game console. The TIA generates the screen display, sound effects, and reads the controllers. At the time the Atari VCS was designed, even small amounts of RAM were expensive. The chip was designed around not having a frame buffer, instead requiring detailed programming to create even a simple display.
The TMS9918 is a video display controller (VDC) manufactured by Texas Instruments, in manuals referenced as "Video Display Processor" (VDP) and introduced in 1979. The TMS9918 and its variants were used in the ColecoVision, CreatiVision, Memotech MTX, MSX, NABU Personal Computer, SG-1000/SC-3000, Spectravideo SV-318, SV-328, Sord M5, Tatung Einstein, TI-99/4, Casio PV-2000, Coleco Adam, Hanimex Pencil II, and Tomy Tutor.
Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is an LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977–1978 by Joe Decuir, Francois Michel, and Steve Smith for the Atari 8-bit computers first released in 1979. The chip was patented by Atari, Inc. in 1981. ANTIC is also used in the 1982 Atari 5200 video game console, which shares most of the same hardware as the 8-bit computers.
Color Television Interface Adaptor (CTIA) and its successor Graphic Television Interface Adaptor (GTIA) are custom chips used in the Atari 8-bit computers and Atari 5200 home video game console. In these systems, a CTIA or GTIA chip works together with ANTIC to produce the video display. ANTIC generates the playfield graphics while CTIA/GTIA provides the color for the playfield and adds overlay objects known as player/missile graphics (sprites). Under the direction of Jay Miner, the CTIA/GTIA chips were designed by George McLeod with technical assistance of Steve Smith.
The Motorola 6845, or MC6845, is a display controller that was widely used in 8-bit computers during the 1980s. Originally intended for designs based on the Motorola 6800 CPU and given a related part number, it was more widely used alongside various other processors, and was most commonly found in machines based on the Zilog Z80 and MOS 6502.
The raster bar is an effect used in demos and older video games that displays animated bars of colour, usually horizontal, which additionally might extend into the border, a.k.a. the otherwise unalterable area of the display. Raster bar-style effects were common on the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers and then later in demos for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, and Amstrad CPC.
A display list, also called a command list in Direct3D 12 and a command buffer in Vulkan, is a series of graphics commands so that they may be later run when the list is executed. Systems that make use of display list functionality are called retained mode systems, while systems that do not are as opposed to immediate mode systems. In OpenGL, display lists are useful to redraw the same geometry or apply a set of state changes multiple times. This benefit is also used with Direct3D 12's bundle command lists. In Direct3D 12 and Vulkan, display lists are regularly used for per-frame recording and execution.
Horizontal blanking interval refers to a part of the process of displaying images on a computer monitor or television screen via raster scanning. CRT screens display images by moving beams of electrons very quickly across the screen. Once the beam of the monitor has reached the edge of the screen, it is switched off, and the deflection circuit voltages are returned to the values they had for the other edge of the screen; this would have the effect of retracing the screen in the opposite direction, so the beam is turned off during this time. This part of the line display process is the Horizontal Blank.
A video display controller (VDC), also called a display engine or display interface, is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing or game system. Some VDCs also generate an audio signal, but that is not their main function. VDCs were used in the home computers of the 1980s and also in some early video picture systems.
Tandy Graphics Adapter is a computer display standard for the Tandy 1000 series of IBM PC compatibles, which has compatibility with the video subsystem of the IBM PCjr but became a standard in its own right.
