Amiga rasterbars are cool -- Meet the Copper, the hardware that helps make them happen
Rasterbars are a common special effect on early computer games and demos. The Commodore Amiga’s take on rasterbars are special due to the Copper, a special processor that synchronizes its activity to your monitor’s image rendering hardware.
Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!
References
Documentation
- Amiga Coprocessor Docs (http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_guide/node0047.html)
- Commodore’s official documentation on the Copper
Examples
- Code examples on Hackerbun (https://code.hackerbun.dev/TheIndustriousRabbit/amiga-agnus-copperbars)
- The code I wrote for the example copperbars in the video, written in C
- Copperbars in Assembler (http://vikke.net/index.php?id=copperbars-1)
- Another description and demo for building copperbars, this one in Assembler
Credits
Music
- “Funin and Sunin” by Kevin MacLeod