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jdm:pc9801:textmode

NEC PC-9801 - Text mode

Screen layout

By default, video memory is stored at A000h:offset for characters and A200h:offset for attributes - both are stored as 16-bit words.

Attribute bits

  • bit 0 - rendered (1), hidden (0)
  • bit 1 - blink (1)
  • bit 2 - reverse video (1)
  • bit 3 - underline (1)
  • bit 4 - VL/BG ???
  • bit 5 - blue (1)
  • bit 6 - red (1)
  • bit 7 - green (1)

Bits 5-7 will function as effective 8-level grayscale on monochrome displays, with values 0 through 7 respectively providing brighter grayscale levels.

Custom glyphs

The PC-9801 provides a facility to upload a limited amount of custom glyphs for use by the graphics chip. These are provided as 34-byte glyphs, which constitute 2 bytes of header and 32-byte 16×16 character data. TODO

jdm/pc9801/textmode.txt · Last modified: 2021/12/25 15:17 by asie