The Atari 2600 in 1977 used a video shifter called the Television Interface Adaptor. Atari ANTIC microprocessor on an Atari 130XE motherboard The Galaxian hardware was widely used during the golden age of arcade video games, by game companies such as Namco, Centuri, Gremlin, Irem, Konami, Midway, Nichibutsu, Sega, and Taito. The Namco Galaxian arcade system in 1979 used specialized graphics hardware that supported RGB color, multi-colored sprites, and tilemap backgrounds. Ī specialized barrel shifter circuit helped the CPU animate the framebuffer graphics for various 1970s arcade video games from Midway and Taito, such as Gun Fight (1975), Sea Wolf (1976), and Space Invaders (1978).
In early video game hardware, RAM for frame buffers was expensive, so video chips composited data together as the display was being scanned out on the monitor. See also: Video display controller, List of home computers by video hardware, and Sprite (computer graphics) 1970s Īrcade system boards have used specialized graphics circuits since the 1970s.
