"Design Case History: The Commodore 64" (PDF)

Originally shared by Norbert Landsteiner

"Design Case History: The Commodore 64" (PDF)
A great writeup on "world's greatest video-game chip," the VIC II chip, by Tekla S. Perry and Paul Wallich, IEEE Spectrum, March 1985. Includes lots of background and nifty details, like this explanation of NTSC artifact colors,

"Nonetheless, the Commodore 64 can display far more than the 16 colors listed in its documentation, in addition to its many other graphics features. Brian Dougherty, president of Berkeley, Calif., explained: 'The width of each pixel is almost half of the NTSC color clock, so when you alternate pixels of two different colors, instead of getting the two colors that you think you're getting, you get a whole new phase interpretation.'"

PDF: https://spectrum.ieee.org/ns/pdfs/commodore64_mar1985.pdf

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17438106
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ns/pdfs/commodore64_mar1985.pdf