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The 7360 Text Editing Device ('''TED''') was an Integrated Circuit made by MOS Technology, Inc. . It was a Video Chip that also contained Sound Generation hardware, DRAM refresh circuitry, Interval Timers , and Keyboard input handling. It was designed for the Commodore Plus/4 and 16 . Packaging consisted of a JEDEC -standard 48-pin DIP .


VIDEO CAPABILITIES

The video capabilities provided by the TED were largely a subset of those in the VIC-II . The TED supported five video modes:

  • Text mode of 40x25 characters with 8x8 pixels

  • Multicolor text (4x8 pixels per character, double pixel width in x direction)

  • Extended background color mode (8x8 pixels per character)

  • Multicolor Graphics 160 x 200 pixels

  • Hi-Res Graphics 320 x 200 pixels


These were largely unchanged from the corresponding VIC-II modes. However, the TED lacked the control. Fifteen of its 16 colors (black being the sole exception) color could be assigned one of 8 luminance values, thus making the TED capable of displaying a far wider array of colors than the VIC-II. The full palette of 121 colors is shown below.Color values are taken from the source code to the YAPE Plus/4 emulator.


SOUND CAPABILITIES

The TED featured a simple tone generator that produced two channels of audio. The first channel produced a Square Wave , and the second could produce either a square wave or White Noise . This tone generator was designed for business applications, and did not provide the extensive sound features found in the SID chip.


OTHER FEATURES

The TED includes three 16-bit interval timers, which consist of Down Counters operating at the master clock frequency. They can generate IRQs on underflow. The chip also contains an I/O Port , which is used on the Plus/4 and 16 to scan the keyboard and Joystick . In addition, it handles Bank Switching , used by the operating system to maximize the amount of RAM available to Commodore BASIC .

An undesirable feature of the chip is its well-known tendency to destroy itself though overheating. To preserve a computer which employs this chip in working order, it is desirable to improve its cooling.


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