PixelatedArcade News


2022-11-15

...And We're Back!

Unexpected Outage and Other November Updates

If you tried to visit PixelatedArcade or PixelatedImages over the past day or two, you may have noticed we were down! That outage certainly took longer than expected, but our hosting provider was performing some maintenance to address performance issues. Everything is back now, and hopefully loading much quicker. In the past month another code update was pushed live which also should help improve performance as well as add some new features; most of these resolve some behind the scenes bugs and make administration easier, but there are also some improvements to the mobile experience and some foundations to begin improving how companies vs. their publishing labels are represented. In the meantime, we're rapidly approaching the end of year holiday season making real life extra busy; hope everyone stays safe and enjoy the rest of the year! Also, just for fun, here's a few other things worth checking out...

2022-09-27

When Colors Clash

Loading Screens and 8-bit Computer Graphics Limitations

Creating graphics on older computers was quite a challenge, and yet many artists and developers put together some impressive results; so I wanted to take a moment to highlight a few of those challenges and present a few screenshots of their work. As I've alluded to in past articles on CGA graphics, most 8-bit computers had graphical limitations beyond just the screen resolution or how many colors could be displayed at once. The precise reason for these limitations varied depending on the computer and specifics of how it's graphics were implemented, but the various, convoluted designs were usually done for the same reasons: to improve speed and/or conserve RAM. In the 1970's and even most of the 1980's processors were slow and memory was very (very!) expensive; to be competitive price-wise cuts had to be made somehow. Going with a black & white or monochrome only approach wasn't going to cut it anymore; although such displays would remain common for quite a while, a system that didn't at least offer the option of color wouldn't do well in the market. So how do you allow a colorful display while at the same time keep performance reasonable and conserve RAM? Here's a quick look at a few of the solutions that were utilized and the distinctive artwork that resulted from working within those confines...

2022-08-15

Area 5150 by CRTC & Hornet

The Big Blue Wrecking Crew is Back!

It doesn't occur terribly often that you hear adjectives such as “impressive” used in conjuction with CGA graphics. But here were are once again! You may recall a while back an amazing demo was released into the world which used CGA's composite graphics to generate 1024 colors on the screen at once, quite a feat for a graphics standard most people associate with being able to display no more than 4 colors. If you haven't already seen this, check out CGA in 1024 Colors - a New Mode: the Illustrated Guide on VileR's blog for more technical info, or simply enjoy the YouTube video 8088 MPH by Hornet + CRTC + DESiRE (final version). And now, the team is back again with another ridiculously impressive demo! The latest effort is viewable on YouTube; check it out captured directly from real hardware in the video Area 5150 by CRTC & Hornet (Party Version) / IBM PC+CGA Demo, Hardware Capture or if you prefer view it as being presented at Evoke 2022 in the Area 5150 Audience Reaction video. This time around no composite video techniques are used, instead every trick in the book is pulled out to show 16 colors graphics with a CGA card and RGB monitor. While the demo scene has more traditionally been associated with the Commodore 64 or Amiga, both machines with specialized hardware for graphics and sound, it's nice to see the humble IBM PC given some attention; this demo is quite the accomplishment, congratulations to everyone involved (and a well deserved first place win)! At the moment only the demo videos are available, a more detailed technical write up should be coming soon and once it's available I'll be sure to post an update with the link. For now, enjoy the videos!

2022-07-02

Even More Tales of CGA Colors

An Accurate IBM 5153 Palette and Composite Color Consequences

A lot has been written about CGA graphics over the years; while most people seem to immediately have in mind the default pallete of cyan, magenta, white, and black, the card could do a lot more, especially if you had a composite monitor. I've added several thoughts to the mix over the past few years including my preferences for better color choices that games could have easily made. Now, here's some more on CGA colors! Regardless of whether or not a game used CGA well, what would have been seen back in the day depended on a number of factors including whether or not a true IBM CGA card was used (versus, say, a third party CGA card or a later standard such as EGA or VGA emulating a CGA graphics mode) and the particular model of monitor. Introduced in 1983, the IBM 5153 monitor is one such configuration that would provide a subtle difference compared to what is normally seen today with emulators. VileR of int10h.org has written an excellent analysis of the actual 16 colors an IBM 5153 would display and why; I highly recommend checking out his article The IBM 5153's True CGA Palette and Color Output...

2022-03-16

The March Miscellaneous Mischief

Code, Books, and Squirrels

Welcome to March 2022! I don't have a particularly substantial update or review this month, but thought I would point a few things out. First is several PixelatedArcade code updates have been pushed live; some changes you won't notice as it's mostly backend administrative stuff, but I did finally enable sorting on game lists! It's a pretty basic feature and embarrassing it took this long to get in place. I've actually had the code in place for a while but not enabled due to some really poor performance; I finally resolved the performance issues so it's available now...

2022-02-10

Do Not Attempt To Adjust The Picture

Actually, DO Adjust It For These Games

Color monitors are ubiquitous now, but that wasn't so in the early days of computing. On early computer systems and game consoles where support for color displays was even an option, color was always achieved with various trade offs (usually as a result of limited amounts of RAM in order to keep prices low). Some computers simply limited the number of colors available at once; the Amstrad CPC and IBM PC with CGA let programmers set any pixel to any color, but no more than four colors at a time could be on screen (without clever programming that is). Many systems, including the popular Commodore 64, allowed more colors on screen at once with the catch that you couldn't just set any pixel to whatever color you wanted willy nilly; the screen was instead broken up into blocks, and within each block there could only be a limited number of colors (typically 2 or 4) depending on the resolution and computer. And finally, among this list of tricks to achieve color are systems that took advantage of artifacting in NTSC composite video. This oddball technique turned a flaw into an advantage to achieve more colors on the screen with the disadvantage being a loss of resolution and clarity...

2021-12-20

Happy Holidays 2021!

The PixelatedArcade 2021 End of Year Roundup

It's hard to believe, but another year is just about wrapped up! That means it's time for another end-of-year roundup as seems to be the tradition - essentially just a quick note to say thanks for checking in and hope you enjoy seeing all of the vintage games, both the good and bad ones. Overall 2021 seems like it may have been a slow year for adding new games, scans, screenshots, and more to the site, but it's been busy nonetheless. A big chunk of time was taken up by my Silpheed project, an attempt to envision what that game might have looked like had there been an arcade version. Other cabinets and props were built along with that as well. It's not always immediately obvious, but several updates to the PixelatedArcade codebase were completed as well in order to improve features, resolve bugs, and to overall make administration of the site easier...
2021-12-03

Silpheed: The Arcade Game (Sort Of!)

Re-Imagining a Classic in a New Format and Behind the Scenes

Have you ever wondered what Silpheed might have looked like had there been an arcade version of it? Most likely the answer is no; Still, I thought why not find out? It seemed to me like a natural candidate; the gameplay is arcade-like, the controls are simple enough to be picked up quickly, unless you're good a game only takes a few minutes, and the game even has a demo resembling an arcade game's “attract mode”; not at all unlike many arcade shooters! So, I embarked on a project to not only imagine what such a beast might look like but to actually build a complete, actual size, playable cabinet. Here are some photos and an overview of the final results...

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