II
AN APPROACH TO MICROPROCESSOR-BASED GAME ARCHITECTURE
Kam Li
Senior Staff Engineer
Signetics Corporation
811 East Arques Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA94086
INTRODUCTION
With the introduction of microprocessors, the hardware implementation of electronic video games has undergone a radical change.
This paper describes an object-oriented approach to designing microprocessor-based video games. With this approach, all the picture generation, object updating, motion, and speed are controlled by the microprocessor. While the earlier random logic approach clearly works, it has several serious drawbacks that become particularly evident when compared with microprocessor-controlled systems. The most significant disadvantage is the tremendous amount of development time required to generate each new game, since an entirely new design is required for each different game. Furthermore, bugs that subsequently show up in the field can become a serious problem. This problem can be extremely difficult to correct, since all the boards must be recalled. When using microprocessors, this problem can be overcome, since software-controlled video games are easy to modify in the field.
Some of the advantages of microprocessor-based video games are summarized below:
- Flexibility–Easy to Modify
- Shorter Development Cycle–Development Time is Equivalent to Programming Time
- Reliability–Fewer Parts Mean Fewer Repairs
- Easier to Maintain–Problems can be fixed by simply Changing ROMs or PROMs
Existing coin-operated, microprocessor-controlled games use a RAM-intensive (or RAM-mapping) approach. Figure 1 is a block diagram of the RAM-intensive approach. The RAM used may vary in size according to the resolution of the objects required. In this case,
Kam Li addressing audience at Gamtronics.
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