The MC6847 is a Video Display Generator (VDG) first introduced by Motorola in 1978[3] and used in the TRS-80 Color Computer,[4] Dragon 32/64,[5] Laser 200,[6] TRS-80 MC-10/Matra Alice,[7] NEC PC-6000 series,[8] Acorn Atom,[9] and the APF Imagination Machine,[10] among others. It is a relatively simple display generator intended for NTSC television output: capable of displaying alphanumeric text, semigraphics,[11] and raster graphics contained within a roughly square display matrix 256 pixels wide by 192 lines high.
The ROM includes a 5 x 7 pixel font, compatible with 6-bit ASCII. Effects such as inverse video or colored text (green on dark green; orange on dark orange) are possible.[12]
The hardware palette is composed of twelve colors:[13] black, green, yellow, blue, red, buff (almost-but-not-quite white), cyan, magenta, and orange (two extra colors, dark green and dark orange, are the ink colours for all alphanumeric text mode characters, and a light orange color is available as an alternative to green as the background color). According to the MC6847 datasheet, the colors are formed by the combination of three signals: with 6 possible levels, (or with 3 possible levels) and (or with 3 possible levels), based on the YPbPr colorspace, and then converted for output into a NTSC analog signal.[12]
The low display resolution is a necessity of using television sets as display monitors. Making the display wider risked cutting off characters due to overscan. Compressing more dots into the display window would easily exceed the resolution of the television and be useless.[14][15]
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Retrieved 2 September 2020. Posey, Bruce Charles (1982). Graphics Using the Motorola6847 Integrated Circuit. W.S.U. Printing Service. Archived from the original...
to the user creating just the illusion of a smooth vertical scroll. Motorola6847, a complete video display generator List of home computers by video...
released for the system. The original model had 4 kB of RAM and used a Motorola6847 video display generator chip, as used in the Dragon 32 and Acorn Atom...
expansion RAM, externally connected RAM must be used. The VZ200 uses the Motorola6847 video processor ( like the TRS-80 Color Computer ), which has a resolution...
hardware introduced the same year Motorola 6845, a display controller widely used in 8-bit computers Motorola6847 Yamaha V9938 Yamaha V9958 List of 8-bit...
early VIC-20's MOS Technology 6561-101 PAL Video Display Controller Motorola6847 List of home computers by video hardware MOS VIC-II as used in the Commodore...
examples of systems using 2×2 matrix color semigraphics. But their Motorola6847 VDC also supported a little used 6-block semigraphics mode. Videotex...
magazine learned that they can use some POKE commands to switch the Motorola6847 graphics chip into one of the artifact modes, while Extended Color BASIC...
video processor) Thomson EF9347 (successor of this video processor) Motorola6847Motorola 6845 TMS9918 MOS Technology VIC-II List of home computers by video...
graphics kit. Developed by Motorola to demonstrate their new 6847 video display processor. The monitor software was called TVBUG Motorola EXORciser development...
Graphically it was mainly let down by such a low amount of RAM that most 6847 video modes were impossible The VTech Laser 200 was also called the "Salora...