CGA at 60 FPS: GlyphBlaster Makes Retro Graphics Smooth
An enthusiast built an adapter that pushes 60fps video through a CGA card — now even old pixels can dance.
Remember when CGA's 16 colors were the pinnacle of graphical achievement, and 60 FPS was a distant dream? Well, one tinkerer decided that the good old CGA deserves a second wind and threw a pixel rave.
The GlyphBlaster project is an ISA adapter that uses modern techniques to output 60 frames per second video to a CGA monitor. How does it work? The creator employed a clever combination of FPGA and custom software that transcodes the video stream into a format the ancient controller can understand. The result is smooth video where there used to be only slideshow-like graphics.
Of course, the resolution remains modest (320x200), but the fact that you can watch YouTube on a CGA monitor is both hilarious and impressive. It's like putting a turbocharger on a Lada — absurd, but it works.
METABYTE Studio's Take
Even if your project doesn't involve resurrecting retro hardware, we're all about squeezing maximum performance out of existing resources. Need to optimize performance or adapt a legacy system? Hit us up — we have solutions for more modern challenges, but with the same geeky enthusiasm.
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