Damus
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Dan Piponi profile picture
I think this is correct:

For moving graphics on the ZX80 you needed to output directly from the CPU, via an I/O port, to the display, as the CRT electron beam scanned across.

On high end luxury hardware gaming hardware like the Atari 2600 you had a timer so you were able to wait until a scan line started before starting the next. The ZX80 had no such timer so you had to ensure every row took the same amount of time. (Like defending against a cryptographic timing attack!)

The ZX81 did have a timer (and associated interrupt) which enabled "slow" mode so it could interleave your code with outputting the display.

I don't recall I ever saw moving graphics on a ZX80. Certainly not mine. It had a mythic quality for me!
1
Bartosz Milewski · 13w
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyd968gmewwp6kyqpqc9m22hkc5h6zgrwkz48crhcpw6vch2rf6j97746ugl3neys86jeqwtg0zc This brings the nostalgia of CGA programming, with the writes to the video buffer that had to be timed using PIT to corrspond to the CRT blanking intervals. You had to do the writes when...