AUDIO/VIDEO SUBSYSTEM
The video subsysten consists of the video display nenory, the
Menory controller, Glue, a graphics control chip (video shifter), a
graphics processing unit (BImLiT) , and a discrete section to drive the
video output. The audio subsysten consists of a Progra.mnable Sound
Generator chip with a transistor output anplifier.
Video Shifter
There are 16 color palette registers Ín the shifter. AII 16 are
nay be used in row resorution, 4 nay be used in high resolution, a¡¡d
only one is used in high resorution (actuarly, onry bit 0 of register 0
is used for inverse/nornal video). Each palette is progr¡mmed for 8
Ievels of intensity of red, blue, and green, so there are 8 x I x I =
112 colors possible. For a given pixel, the coror which is displayed is
taken fron the palette referred to by getting infornation from each
logical plane (see description of video dispray menory betow). The
shifter will output the red, green, and blue levers specified by that
palette; note there are three outputs for each color. Each output is
either on or off. Thus, the nu¡nber of possible output levels is Z to
the lrd power = $. The three outputs are sr¡nmed through a resistor
network to proportion the voltage level to give I equal steps. In
monochrome node, the color palettes are bypassed a¡rd there is a
separate output.
Video Display Menory
Display nemory is part of nain nenory with the physical screen
origin located at the top left corner of the screen.
Display Eenory is configured as 1, 2, or 4 (nigh, nediun, or 1ow
resolution) Iogical planes interwoven by 16 bit words into contiguous
nemory to forn one 32 Kilobyte physical plane starting at a 256 byte
half page boundary. The starting address of display Eer¡ory is placed in
the Menory Controller's Video Base Address register by the Operating
Systen or application. The Menory Controller will load display
infornation into the video Shifter 16 uits at a tine, and the Video
Shifter wirl decode this infornation to generate a seriar dispray
strean. rn nonochrone mode, each bit represents 1 pixer on or off. rn
color, bits are conbined fron each plane to generate the comect level
of red, green, and blue.
For exanple, in low resolution (4 ptanes) 4 words are loaded into
the Video Shifter for each word (16 pixels displayed on the screen. Tt¡e
Video Shifter conbines bit 0 from each word to forn a four bit
nunber (0-15), and takes the color from the palette referenced by that
nunber (e.s. 0101=5, use color from palette register !) a¡rd outputs
those revers, then takes bit 1 fron each plane and outputs the coror
from the palette referenced by those four bits, etc.
Mega Service ManuaÌ 2.5 Theory of Operation