Namco Galaxian
The Namco Galaxian is an 8-bit arcade game system board, which was first used by Namco for Galaxian in 1979; it was the first board from the company to use the Zilog Z80 microprocessor (as opposed to the older Intel 8080). It uses specialized graphics hardware supporting RGB color, multi-colored sprites and tilemap backgrounds.[1] Its introduction of colorful tilemap graphics distinguished it from the Taito 8080 monochrome framebuffer system of Space Invaders.[2] Namco Galaxian also introduced a sprite line buffer system, which was adopted by later systems such as the Namco Pac-Man, Midway's Tron hardware[3] and Sega Z80.
Namco Galaxian specifications
- Main CPU microprocessor: Zilog Z80 @ 3.072 MHz[4] (8-bit & 16-bit instructions @ 450,000 instructions per second)[5]
- Sound chips: Namco custom sound hardware[6]
- Audio channels: One programmable 4/8-bit waveform channel, three 4-bit square wave channels, two 17-bit noise channels, one modulated noise pulse channel[6]
- Graphics chipset: Namco custom video hardware[1][6]
- Display resolution: 256x224[7] to 384x264[8] (horizontal), 224x256 to 264x384 (vertical)
- Refresh rate: 60.60606 Hz (V-sync)[6]
- Color model: RGB[9]
- Color palette: 224[1]
- Colors on screen: 32[6]
- Background planes:
- Sprite capabilities: Line buffer,[3] 8x8 to 16x16 sizes, 4 colors per sprite,[6] 15 sprites (7 main sprites, 7 shells, 1 missile) per scanline, 240 sprite pixels per scanline, sprite flipping,[1] sprite animation[10]
Expansions
King & Balloon
King & Balloon adds the following audio upgrades:
List of Namco Galaxian arcade games
Namco
- Galaxian (1979) - Namco's first big hit
- King & Balloon (1980) - one of the first games to feature synthesized voices
References
- https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/src/mame/video/galaxian.c%5B%5D
- Wolf, Mark J. P. (2012-06-15). Before the Crash: Early Video Game History. ISBN 978-0814337226.
- http://www.vasulka.org/archive/Writings/VideogameImpact.pdf#page=25
- "Game Logic Schematic" (PDF). Midway Galaxian Parts and Operating Manual. Chicago, Illinois: Midway Games. February 1980. pp. 22, 24. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
- http://www.drolez.com/retro/
- https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/src/mame/drivers/galaxian.c%5B%5D
- http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=513
- https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/src/mame/includes/galaxian.h
- http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7885
- https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~%20sedwards/classes/2011/4840/reports/Galaxian.pdf
External links
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.