HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

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] - https://github.com/watson/awesome-computer-history

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecH3OU0R4ls

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxT6IwUtLSU

Not to forget composite colour artifacting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

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: https://youtu.be/niKblgZupOc

⬐ Agingcoder

This is fascinating. I never realized it was meant to be used that way.

In practice, (and I saw plenty of ugly CGA) I don't think I ever came across one of these composite outputs/monitor combos.

⬐ aasasd

Good point. Fiddling with blur in Gimp does remove plenty of that dither noise. Though of course now my eyes keep trying to refocus, just like in the olde times.

⬐ setpatchaddress

This is largely cherry-picking revisionism. I saw CGA on the displays of the time at the time with the games of the time, and can confirm it was mostly terrible. EGA couldn't come fast enough.

⬐ laumars

You’re missing the point. I wasn’t suggesting CGA was brilliant. I was just saying that CGA actually works best when differed because the screens of the time blended the pixels to create new colours. And that the reason CGA uses the colour scheme it does is because that allows for more colours to be created via blending.

EGA was definitely a massive step up, no question. But people also miss the point of CGA when they look as sharp screenshots rendered on a pixel perfect LCD display.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfh0ytz8S0k - C64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc - PC CGA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rsycfDliZU - Apple and Atari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpNWEbZdXNw - GBA

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

⬐ jpl56

He also explained how to mod a consumer TV to use RGB input (provided there is no SCART input). And he explains how to discharge the capacitors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLz6pgvsZ_I

CGA colors were designed for display on composite; the issue is most people were using digital cables, which had the garish colors. https://youtu.be/niKblgZupOc has a great overview of what was possible.

I wonder what it looked like on a CGA Composite monitor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

⬐ glandium

Holy sh*t, this totally blew my mind! My first x86-based PC was a Sinclair PC200, which had CGA, and I had a RGBI monitor, and while online references of that PC suggest it had a composite output, I never used it. I thus had to endure the crappy output mode, and never knew it could have been so much better (and that a lot of the games I played were optimized for that better output).

I wonder if some emulators have a filter to get something like the composite output...

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

He shows all the interesting artifacting that makes these extra colours possible.

This is very similar to how CGA worked on the IBM PC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

⬐ Zardoz84

Don't forget Apple ][ . Wozniac abused of NTSC artifacts to generate colors.

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

https://youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc

⬐ Keyframe

I already knew about this, but it always blows my mind when I see it. Composite was magic. Dark magic, but still magic. Life is a lot easier today for us in film and video though, I would not like to go back except for nostalgia.

⬐ qwertyuiop924

Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

⬐ None

None

⬐ banyek

Yea, this was pretty suprising, because I never used CGA+Composite

This link is dead.

I assume this is the same video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc