This Is Your Alternate Reality

Another blast from the Atari 800 past: the opening to a video game called “Alternate Reality”. Hard to imagine these days, but this 8-bit game pushed the computer to the limit: the Atari could play four tones at once and display four colors at once. You’ll notice there are more than each in the video. This was done by playing tricks with the internal values so the computer swapped in a new set of four colors and four tones by the microsecond before the screen had refreshed. Hardcore.