Date   : Sat, 28 May 1983 13:39:00-PDT
From   : fylstra.tsca@sri-unix
Subject: product idea

Here is a product idea for those of you with infinite spare time.
Now that VIC-20's and Atari-400's are down to $80 at your local
drug store, I would like to use one as a color graphics display
device (and possibly terminal) for my S-100 CP/M system.  Here is
a description of the ideal product (Atari version):

A PC board that plugs into the Atari 400/800 bus.  Contains one or
two 2716 EPROM sockets, a UART with baud rate generator, suitable
decoding, and RS-232 level convertors.  A ribbon cable brings the
RS-232 signals outside to a DB-25 connector.  Power-on reset jumps
into the EPROM.  The EPROM contains firmware to emulate a color
graphics terminal.  In addition to standard terminal functions
(printable characters, CR, LF, BS, clear screen, etc), escape
sequences would be used to select display mode (resolution/color
set); draw dots, lines, circles; fill in polygons; etc.
A reasonable candidate for the command language would be the
Tektronix 4010 terminal.  It should also have the capability of
up/downloading an entire screen image verbatim.  While we're at
it, let's add the capability to examine/deposit any arbitrary
region of memory, set processor registers, and start execution.
Another nice feature would be the ability to define "display
macros," each consisting of a variable-length string of the
graphics primitives, which could then be invoked by transmitting
the macro code.

I've always wanted a color graphics display capability for my
S-100 system.  It would be handy to have an additional terminal
(even with 40-column display width) available for testing purposes.
It should be possible to brew this design for less than $100 in
parts.  Anyone interested?

Dave Fylstra