Does Intellivision use Sprites

[daldude]

Does Intellivision use Sprites and if so what kind? Are Sprites Hardware only or is there such a thing as software Sprites?

Wikipedia lists the Atari VCS as having Sprites but does not list Intellivision. Does this mean the far superior more advanced system does not use Sprites? That would not make sense to me if it's true. More advanced systems should have what older systems have with new more advanced features or technology.

[HunterZero]

Yes, the STIC chip allows for 8 moving objects (MOB), the same thing as sprites. Each MOB can be 8x8 or 8x16, and can be single height (pixel height is 1/2 a background pixel) or double height (pixel height is the same as a background pixel). Pixels in MOBs are always the same width as the background pixels.

 

I believe that each sprite is a single colour 1-plane bitmap, which means each pixel can be on or off, ie, either a single sprite colour, or see-through so the background will be shown. You can make moving objects with more than one colour by overlapping multiple sprites in the same position with different colours.

 

The Intellivision can redisplay the same sprites on different scan lines going down the screen with some clever programming to give the illusion of even more objects, a trick known as multiplexing, but this tends to cause sprite flicker.

 

As far as I know, the Intellivision would not easily be able to do software sprites, due to the background card method of accessing the display.

 

- J

[mr_me]

And all eight Intellivision hardware sprites can be displayed on the same scanline at the same time. The coleco vision and atari5200 are limited to four per scanline and the Atari2600 only two. The Atari 5200 has four additiinal two pixel "missile" objects (three single pixel for the 2600). The advantage the other systems have is these sprites can be reused down the screen so overall they can have more sprites but the Intellivision can have more on a horizontal line without flicker.

 

Software sprites is all done with programming the background and takes some skill. These old machines are limited in cpu and ram resources. As Hunterzero pointed out Intellivision hardware sprites are higher resolution than the background. Space Armada and Worm Whomper are two examples of Intellivision games with software sprites (lots of objects and no flicker). Popeye for Intellivision is an example of multiplexing hardware sprites and has flicker.

Edited August 7, 2017 by mr_me

[mr_me]

And they didnt use the word "sprite" back in the 1970s. Mattel called them moving objects "mobs" and atari called them stamps. The atari2600 didnt have background tiles. The Intellivisision along with Namco's Galaxian were the first videogames to use background tiles. The first time I heard the term sprite used with computer graphics was with the commodore64. Apparently Texas Instruments was the first to use the term.

[CatPix]

In France, they were called "items" then for a short time, they translated sprite as "lutin" (the mythical critter)

It would be interesting to have a general topic about video game vocabulary, as the topic pops from time to time. I remember talking about the cartridges being called tapes.

Edited August 7, 2017 by CatPix

[mr_me]

And Mattel called their background tile graphics "cards" and "backtab" (short for background table). Mattel initially called their cartridges "cassettes" but quickly changed to cartridges. Nobody technical called them tapes but lots of people did.

[daldude]

I hated it when people called cartridges Tapes or also when people say "Are you going to Tape that TV Show when referring to DVRs back when they first came out or when TIVO Came Out calling recording something on a Non TIVO DVR "TIVOing it".

 

Onetime when some relative came to visit my family she saw my Intellivision game collection and said "Oh look at all those Atari Tapes" Errr Yuck first of all calling them Crappy Atari as in the crappy VCS and also wrongly calling them Tapes. Tapes are things with Tape inside them and Even Cassette is not specifically only a tape it is anything housed in a casing

Definition of cassette

1: a usually flat case or cartridge that can be easily loaded or unloaded: such asa : a lightproof magazine for holding film or plates for use in a camerab :

2: a plastic cartridge containing magnetic tape with the tape passing from one reel to another

 

I like to sometimes jokingly refer to CDs as Tapes or Flat Silver Tapes to mock people that call things like cartridges or similarly shape items or even Floppy Disks as Tapes.

 

The VCS Did have tapes, it was with that Super Charger that used Cassette Tapes to load the games onto it. That was a pretty cool device for it's time it managed to eliminate flicker on all of it's games, it did not really make the graphics look any more advanced or better just removed the flicker it still was not Intellivision or Colecovision quality.

Also it did not fit in the Colecovision or Intellivision System changers with out first taking it apart. I had a Colecivision and had to take appart the Super Charger in order to use it and my Cousin told me he had to do the same with his Intellivison 2 System Changer.

I read recently that they made an extension adapter to get it to fit in the Non Atari VCS third party Systems. I wonder if they are available on E-bay?

 

In France, they were called "items" then for a short time, they translated sprite as "lutin" (the mythical critter)

It would be interesting to have a general topic about video game vocabulary, as the topic pops from time to time. I remember talking about the cartridges being called tapes.

[Intymike]

In the early videogame days cartridges were called in german "Cassetten" or "Kassetten" (cassettes), just like music tapes. Even in the Mattel manuals.

Later it changed to "Modul" (module).

Edited August 7, 2017 by Intymike

[+Lathe26]

Does the Intellivision use sprite? Yes.

 

... and from the cleaning of old sticky consoles, it also uses Coke, Pepsi, A&W Root Beer, too.

 

[Carl Mueller Jr]

And they didnt use the word "sprite" back in the 1970s. Mattel called them moving objects "mobs" and atari called them stamps. The atari2600 didnt have background tiles. The Intellivisision along with Namco's Galaxian were the first videogames to use background tiles. The first time I heard the term sprite used with computer graphics was with the commodore64. Apparently Texas Instruments was the first to use the term.

Actually, they were never called MOBs back in the day. This was an abbreviation coined by Joe Z. and adopted by the homebrew community. When I initially reversed engineered the hardware back in the early 90s, I called them MOs, but for some strange reason that never caught on. :-(

[Carl Mueller Jr]

And all eight Intellivision hardware sprites can be displayed on the same scanline at the same time. The coleco vision and atari5200 are limited to four per scanline and the Atari2600 only two. The Atari 5200 has four additiinal two pixel "missile" objects (three single pixel for the 2600). The advantage the other systems have is these sprites can be reused down the screen so overall they can have more sprites but the Intellivision can have more on a horizontal line without flicker.

 

Software sprites is all done with programming the background and takes some skill. These old machines are limited in cpu and ram resources. As Hunterzero pointed out Intellivision hardware sprites are higher resolution than the background. Space Armada and Worm Whomper are two examples of Intellivision games with software sprites (lots of objects and no flicker). Popeye for Intellivision is an example of multiplexing hardware sprites and has flicker.

Space Armada does not really use software sprites. The game does sequence background pictures for animation, but it does not actually shift their patterns to give the illusion of movement. Instead, the screen scrolls and the background patterns remain fixed, only to change when animations occur.

The shields, weapons fire, and ship are all moving objects, so their positions are modified to hide that the screen is scrolling. (Normally, moving objects move with the background.)

It might be fun to make a list of games that do use true software sprites. Right now I can only think of Wormwhompper and He-Man.

Ms. Pac-Man originally used software sprites for the ghosts' eyes, but it was eventually removed because it slowed down the game too much. The code however remains, and can be viewed in the source code.

Carl

[Carl Mueller Jr]

By the way, as far as I know the Intellivision was the first game console to actually support smooth scrolling. Even the Colecovision, which came out more than two years after the Intellivision, lacked smooth scrolling in hardware.

[daldude]

Does the Intellivision use sprite? Yes.

 

... and from the cleaning of old sticky consoles, it also uses Coke, Pepsi, A&W Root Beer, too.

 

51zeHiyhNOL._SY445_.jpg

What About Sierra Mist, RC Cola, Cheerwine, 7UP and Ginger Ale?

[+Lathe26]

What About Sierra Mist, RC Cola, Cheerwine, 7UP and Ginger Ale?

RC Cola, yes

Cheerwine, yes

Sierra Mist, no

Ginger Ale, yes

7Up, yes

Bubble Up, yes

Elf cola, yes

[+fdr4prez]

What about Jooky?

 

It is the party in the can!!!!

 

https://youtu.be/CaFR6PC820c

[+fdr4prez]

Or heaven forbid drink some Sun Fizz

 

https://youtu.be/qtRHrZaW10w

[carlsson]

What about Jooky?

 

It is the party in the can!!!!

There's potential for a lot of moving objects in that commercial!

[+DZ-Jay]

Actually, they were never called MOBs back in the day. This was an abbreviation coined by Joe Z. and adopted by the homebrew community. When I initially reversed engineered the hardware back in the early 90s, I called them MOs, but for some strange reason that never caught on. :-(

Not true, unless you are talking within the Intellivision community. My C=64 Programmer's Reference Guide called them "Movable Object Blocks," or MOBs for short.

[+DZ-Jay]

The Intellivision can redisplay the same sprites on different scan lines going down the screen with some clever programming to give the illusion of even more objects, a trick known as multiplexing, but this tends to cause sprite flicker.

 

Just a note on the above. Although it is technically true that the Intellivision can do this, I must point out that it is different from what "multiplexing" means in other platforms. Especially, the mention of "on different scanlines" suggests a confusion between the techniques.

 

Unlike other contemporary platforms, the Intellivision provides no mechanism to the programmer for accessing or altering sprite or graphics data within a scanline or frame. You can only redefine a sprite or a background graphic tile in between frames. This means that on each frame a programmer can re-position all 8 sprites giving the illusion of having more than 8.

 

However, since it happens once per frame, it essentially divides the frame rate by the number of alternations.

 

This introduces flicker since a sprite will essentially disappear for an entire frame while it appears somewhere else. The more positions you alternate for the same sprite, the more frames you take, and the longer each position is "blanked out," resulting in more noticeable flicker.

 

Contrast this with "multiplexing" on, say, the Atari VCS or the Commodore 64, where the programmer has much more control over the raster beam. In such platforms, the technique involves changing the position of a sprite right after it has been drawn on a frame, just in time to draw it again further down the same frame.

 

Depending on the amount of time available to the programmer, he may be able to do this within the same scanline (which is rare) or further down the screen. This is why some systems can support multiplexing more objects as long as they do not reside on the same horizontal plane.

 

dZ.

[mr_me]

I knew someone that had a c-64 in the '80s and he called them sprites. That was the first time I heard the term and thought it was a strange word for these things. He got it from his commodore programming reference guide, chapter 3. You'd have to ask one of the old Intellivision programmers if they had a shortened name for "moveable objects".

 

Edit:

To the Intellivision it makes no difference when multiplexing sprites on the same scanline or further down the display. You will always have flicker. With systems like the NES or coleco vision the system automatically took care of the multiplexing on different scanlines so the term didnt really apply to the programmer, except maybe the reordering for scanline conflicts. With the atari 2600 it was all done by the programmer so they use the term multiplexing with or without flicker wherever on the display.

Edited August 14, 2017 by mr_me

[+DZ-Jay]

I knew someone that had a c-64 in the '80s and he called them sprites. That was the first time I heard the term and thought it was a strange word for these things. He got it from his commodore programming reference guide, chapter 3. You'd have to ask one of the old Intellivision programmers if they had a shortened name for "moveable objects".

 

Edit:

To the Intellivision it makes no difference when multiplexing sprites on the same scanline or further down the display. You will always have flicker. With systems like the NES or coleco vision the system automatically took care of the multiplexing on different scanlines so the term didnt really apply to the programmer, except maybe the reordering for scanline conflicts. With the atari 2600 it was all done by the programmer so they use the term multiplexing with or without flicker wherever on the display.

The Commodore 64 programmers guide used the terms movable object and sprites interchangeably, as far as I can remember.

 

I know that I also picked up the term MOB during my youth in the 1980s, and it did not come at all from the Intellivision community.

[+DZ-Jay]

The Commodore 64 programmers guide used the terms movable object and sprites interchangeably, as far as I can remember.

 

I know that I also picked up the term MOB during my youth in the 1980s, and it did not come at all from the Intellivision community.

Sorry, I just checked, and indeed Commodore used "sprites" in their C=64 nomenclature. However, MOS Technology used "MOBs" for "Movable Object Block" in their data sheets and product specifications for chipsets, the VIC-II neon one of them.

 

This may have leaked into use by Commodore marketing teams, magazines and programming books of the time. I know that I called them "MOBs" and "sprites" interchangeably when I was a child, and didn't just learn that term recently.

 

https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Sprite

 

dZ.

[carlsson]

In partcular, the C64 BASIC extention Simons' BASIC (*) introduces the keyword MOB to handle sprites, if it matters much.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simons%27_BASIC

 

(*) His name is David Simons, although a lot of people mistake him for his first name being Simon.

Edited August 14, 2017 by carlsson

[+DZ-Jay]

In partcular, the C64 BASIC extention Simons' BASIC (*) introduces the keyword MOB to handle sprites, if it matters much.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simons%27_BASIC

 

(*) His name is David Simons, although a lot of people mistake him for his first name being Simon.

Oh, right! I always thought it was "Simon's BASIC." Lol!

[Mr SQL]

LOL, so did I!

 

Does the Intellivision give the programmer acess to both vertical blanks or is the CPU free during display?