Chips › Graphics & video › Home-computer video › Acorn VIDC

Acorn VIDC

1987

Acorn's Video Controller for the Archimedes, converting screen memory into video and also driving the machine's sound output.

Machines

Acorn A3000

Acorn A310

Acorn A440

Acorn Archimedes

Operating systems

RISC OS 2

RISC OS 3.1

Emulators

EmulatorTypeLicenseSite
Acorn ArchimedesonlineGPL-2.0Website ↗
ArcEmdownloadableGPL-2.0Website ↗
Archimedes Live!onlineGPL-2.0Website ↗
ArculatordownloadableGPL-2.0Website ↗
OakdownloadableFreewareWebsite ↗

Reference & documentation

External technical references for programming Acorn VIDC and for writing emulators.

ResourceTypeNotes
Acorn VIDC Datasheet (VIDC1, Sept 1986) ↗DatasheetOfficial VIDC1 datasheet: registers, palette, video/sound timing
ARM VIDC20 Datasheet (Feb 1995) ↗DatasheetVIDC20: 256 28-bit palette entries, DACs, pixel timing
theom Acorn techdocs: interrupt sources ↗Interrupt listArchimedes interrupt sources listing for emulator authors
theom Acorn techdocs: Archimedes memory map ↗Memory mapArchimedes memory map and VIDC register addresses
Acorn VIDC Datasheet (VIDC1, Sept 1986) ↗PinoutPin functions and package pinout for VIDC1
Programming the VIDC registers (theom techdocs hub) ↗ProgrammingLinks register-programming guide and original chipset datasheets
VIDC20 Datasheet on Internet Archive ↗ReferenceVIDC20 datasheet with full-text and multiple formats
VIDC1 - Wikipedia ↗ReferenceVIDC1 overview: 4096-colour palette, clock, PWM sound
VIDC20 - Wikipedia ↗ReferenceVIDC20 overview: 110MHz pixel clock, 28-bit palette
MAME acorn_vidc.cpp source ↗SourceReference implementation of VIDC1, VIDC1a and VIDC20
ArcEm - Archimedes emulator (source) ↗SourceC emulator source implementing IOC, MEMC, VIDC