Ever wonder how video game visual effects were achieved back in the 80\'s and early 90\'s? Back when computers were still using 8 and 16 bit technology? A blogger over at the EffectGames website has written up an article addressing this very subject, one that is sure to be of interest to any digital artist:

\"Anyone remember Color cycling from the 90s? This was a technology often used in 8-bit video games of the era, to achieve interesting visual effects by cycling (shifting) the color palette. Back then video cards could only render 256 colors at a time, so a palette of selected colors was used. But the programmer could change this palette at will, and all the onscreen colors would instantly change to match. It was fast, and took virtually no memory. Thus began the era of color cycling.\"

You can read more about the article by checking out the following link:

As you may probably know, the Round Table is King Arthur\'s most famous table where he and his knights would gather. Today there is new research that suggests that the Round Table of King Arthur\'s court, rather than being just an elaborate piece of furniture, was actually a large wood and stone building capable of housing over 1,000 people. Reporter Martin Evans from the Telegraph writes:

\"Researchers exploring the legend of Britain\u2019s most famous Knight believe his stronghold of Camelot was built on the site of a recently discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester.

But rather than it being a piece of furniture, historians believe it would have been a vast wood and stone structure which would have allowed more than 1,000 of his followers to gather.\"

The reset of the news report can be read at the following link:

The model M keyboard from IBM is an iconic piece of 80\'s computer technology that, even after 25 years, is still being used today in some form or another. A blogger named Chrism has written up an editorial about this remarkable phenomenon:

\"The very notion that computer hardware that began its tour of duty in the mid-1980s is still useful today seems improbable. It seems even more improbable that such surviving hardware would have moving parts. But it is, and it does. You can plug a Model M from 1987 into just about any modern computer with a PS/2 port, and it will just work. Don\'t worry, you\'ll already know how to use it; keyboards haven\'t changed very much since 1987. Only very recently has the availability of a PS/2 port on a computer become rare. Keyboards with USB interfaces (aka \"Human Input Devices\", ugh) are replacing these very quickly. But, at least for now, USB-to-PS/2 adapters are commonplace, cheap, and effective. And, as we\'ll see, one can even buy a Model M with a USB interface instead of a PS/2 one these days too. More on that a little later though.\"

You can read the rest of the article at the following link: