The Thomson EF936x series is a type of Graphic Display Processor (GDP) by Thomson-EFCIS. [1] The chip could draw at 1 million pixels per second, which was relatively advanced for the time of its release (1982 or earlier).
There are various versions of the chip (EF9364, [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] EF9365, [8] [9] [10] EF9366, [11] [12] [10] EF9367, [13] [14] [15] SFF96364, [16] [17] [18] EF9369 [19] [20] [21] ), [22] with slightly different capabilities.
In 1982 Commodore released a "High Resolution Graphics" board for the PET based on the EF9365 and EF9366 chips, allowing it to display 512 × 512 or 512 × 256 resolution graphics. [23] [24] [25] The EF9366 was also used on the SMP-E353 graphic card for the Siemens SICOMP computer series and on the NDR-Klein-Computer introduced in 1984. [26]
Version EF9369 was used on computers such as the Thomson MO5NR [27] , MO6 [28] , TO8, [29] TO9 [30] and TO9+, [31] and from 1985 to 1989 on the DAI Personal Computer.
Based on the 1989 data book published by the company, the EF936x series was split into Graphics Controllers and Color Palette models. [32]
Graphics Controllers
Color Palette
EF9365/6 Character Set | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2x | 3x | 4x | 5x | 6x | 7x | |
0 | SP | 0 | @ | P | ‘ | p |
1 | ! | 1 | A | Q | a | q |
2 | " | 2 | B | R | b | r |
3 | # | 3 | C | S | c | s |
4 | $ | 4 | D | T | d | t |
5 | % | 5 | E | U | e | u |
6 | & | 6 | F | V | f | v |
7 | ’ | 7 | G | W | g | w |
8 | ( | 8 | H | X | h | x |
9 | ) | 9 | I | Y | i | y |
A | * | : | J | Z | j | z |
B | + | ; | K | [ | k | { |
C | , | < | L | \ | l | | |
D | - | = | M | ] | m | } |
E | . | > | N | ↑ | n | ¬ |
F | / | ? | O | ← | o | ▒ |
The GPUs did not support direct access to the graphics memory, although a special command was provided to aid in implementing access to individual memory words.
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