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Table of Contents
Graphics Memory
The GameTank has two kinds of memory involved in graphics and video. Both are accessed in the range $4000-$7FFF when each is banked in by the system control registers.
When DMA_ENABLE is unset then DMA_CPU_TO_VRAM determines whether the CPU accesses the Framebuffers (when flag is 1) or Sprite RAM (when flag is 0).
Framebuffers
The framebuffers are a region of memory that is directly output to the connected TV. The system uses a double framebuffer, meaning there are two 128×128 image buffers that can be drawn to or displayed separately.
System control registers determine which buffer is read by the video hardware and which is accessed by the CPU or the blitter.
Sprite RAM
Sprite RAM is a set of eight 256×256 pixel buffers. These are not directly displayed but serve as the source data for a blitter copy.
The blitter may read anywhere within a 256×256 page as a contiguous region. When accessed by the CPU however, only one quadrant of the currently selected sprite page is mapped in at a time.
The quadrant selected for CPU access is determined by the state of the blitter's sprite cursor. Whichever quadrant the sprite cursor was in at the end of the last blitter operation will be the quadrant accessed by the CPU in direct mode.