The Search for Artifact Color on the Commodore 64

NTSC composite artifact color is something typically relegated to computers with off-the-shelf graphics hardware.  We associate it with the Apple II mainly, which used it in its high resolution modes.  TRS-80 Color Computer fans also know it very well, because it was the only color available in that computer line's graphics until the Model 3.  IBM PCs also used with more frequency than was commonly known in the early days in CGA graphics cards.  But Commodore didn't rely on off-the-shelf 74-series logic to drive its home computers' displays.  It had bought the MOS company and all its chip fabrication expertise.  Its computers used real graphics chips and they displayed real color.  They didn't need the composite tricks to get their graphics working and they didn't need boards devoted to graphics either.  But I have come across some information which suggests that the assumption that the Commodore 64 did not support composite artifact color may not be supportable.




The Commodore VIC-20 used a graphics and sound chip called the VIC (Video Interface Chip), MOS 6560.  It could output 16 colors and supported a 176x184 resolution.  A large single-color border surrounded the active display.  This resolution was low enough not to cause much color artifacts.  Then the C64 used the VIC-II chip, the MOS 6567.  This chip was much more advanced and could display 16 colors at 160x200 or 320x200 modes with borders.  Each tile in the 160-pixel mode could use up to four colors, but each tile in the 320-color mode could only use two colors.

Now most games used the 160-pixel color mode.  With only 160-pixels, the pixel clock and the NTSC clock were more-or-less synchronous with each other, so each color had its own distinctiveness and did not clash with the next color.  But with 320-pixels being displayed, the 3.58MHz NTSC clock cannot keep up with the pixel clock. While Apple and IBM used an integer multiple of 3.58MHz to ensure artifact colors would be produced, Commodore used a pixel clock of 8.18MHz to try to make sure that the pixel clock would not fall neatly between the NTSC color clock, thereby reducing the reliability of artifacts.  It also generated colors directly, having the circuitry to display preset combinations of eight different "angles" on the NTSC color wheel and eight different luminance values combined for the official 16-color palette.

So you might think that artifact colors are too unreliable to be useful in the C64, but I was unsure.  Consider the following screenshots :

Those screenshots are of the dungeons of Ultima III and Ultima IV, respectively, that I took (and submitted to MobyGames) via WinVICE.  Note how the dungeon walls have a pattern of alternating vertical white and black lines.  As you may know Ultima III and Ultima IV were developed for the Apple II computers and use the alternating white and black pattern to show single-color walls in the dungeons on a color display using artifact colors.  On a monochrome display which suppresses the NTSC color carrier, the walls would use the pattern shown above on an Apple II.  The versions for the IBM PC (with CGA) and Atari 8-bit home computers rely on artifact colors and show either solid color walls or striped walls depending on the type of display to which you are connecting these computers.

But the C64 was not intended to support composite artifact colors.  It's high resolution mode could easily use solid colors for these walls given that you can choose two colors in each 8x8 tile.  Why did the programmer choose to use striped wall tiles instead of solid wall tiles?  And why use white?Unless the C64 could produce composite artifact colors, there was no good reason other than a programmer who never saw how the port would look on the C64.

A couple of years ago, I asked on the NESdev forum why the NES did not show composite color artifacts and the conversation eventually turned to a comparison between the NES and the C64.  The conclusion from the first round of discussion was that the C64 displayed a fully compliant NTSC picture and thus should show those stripey walls even with a composite signal : http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=14394&hilit=c64&start=15#p174784

For quite a while I could not prove or disprove my suspicions that there was some support for composite artifact color in these games.  The C64 emulators were all PAL-centric and PAL is a more sophisticated color decoding system that does not show composite color artifacts.  Any kind of CRT filter in emulators like WinVICE do not try to properly generate NTSC color.  While I had a C64, until I had a way to play games on it, there was nothing I could do.  Last year I acquired a 1641 Ultimate II+ flash cart and floppy drive emulator and could finally start some testing.  S-Video capture of the C64 showed no color artifacts as I expected.  The walls were white and stripey, although not quite as sharp and distinct as the ideal captures shown above.  I know I tried my capture card with the composite connection and saw more blending of the lines than S-Video but no color to speak of.  I concluded that the programmer must have intended white.  At this time, which was in mid-2017, the one thing I did not do was to connect my C64 to my TV to see what my TV actually displayed.  Here is what my capture cards show with the R8 VIC-II :

VIC-II 6567R8 S-Video

VIC-II 6567R8 Composite

A few months ago the subject was brought up again on NESdev, and this time the claim was that the old revision of the C64's VIC-II graphics chip should show reliable artifact colors : http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17061&hilit=c64&start=45#p214470  The 6567 VIC-II came in many revisions and the revision is marked on the chip's package.  Known revisions are the R56A, R7, R8 & R9.  Between the R56A and the R7, Commodore made slight timing tweaks to the VIC-II which caused color artifacts to be much more suppressed than on the R56A.  The oldest C64s with the 5-pin video output DINs use the R56A.  Later C64s with the 8-pin port will likely use an R7 or above.

The timing differences between the R56A and the R7-9s are slight.  The R56A outputs 262 vertical lines and the R7-9 output 263 (Canonical NTSC outputs 262.5 lines)  The R56A displays each line in  64 machine cycles vs. 65 machine cycles for R7-9.  See here : http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/c64/vic-ii.txt  Apparently the even values are more composite artifact color friendly than the odd values used in the later revisions.

On the strength of the discussion and the expertise of the individuals leading the discussion in NESdev, I decided to take a second look at the composite graphics of Ultimas III & IV.  Unfortunately my C64 has an 8-pin DIN with a 6567 R8 inside it, so I knew going into it that I would probably not see ideal composite colors.  This is what I saw with my C64 :

The above colors were encouraging, it seems that Commodore's tweaks reduced the composite color artifacts to some extent, enough to discourage people from exploring the capabilities.  But what about the R56A?  That was the chip which was supposedly composite artifact color friendly, but I did not have one.  Fortunately my friend Cloudschatze had a "parts C64" that used the 5-pin DIN and could lend to me.

However, when I received his C64, the system would turn on to a black screen.  There was no SID chip in the system, but that would not cause the C64 to fail to boot.  I noticed that one of the 6526s got burning hot to the touch within 30 seconds, so at some point it would have to be replaced but even that would not cause the system to fail to boot.

The systems using the 5-pin video output DINs use a PCB designated as Assembly # 326289.  The schematic covering this system is 326106.  My 8-pin video output DIN system used the next major PCB revision, Assembly # 250407, schematic 251138.  Given that the chips used in each PCB were identical and use the same U## designations, I decided to remove the R56A from the 5-pin system and put it the 8-pin system.  Even though Commodore did not always socket its chips, they always socketed the VIC-IIs in the older PCBs.  The old VIC-II worked just fine in the newer PCB.  (Intros and Demos like the R56A even less than the R7-9s, Ultima IV Remastered Edition refuses to work with an R56A.)  Firing up Ultima IV on my TV gave me this image :

I was rather surprised, I expected solid color walls, not what I saw in that photo.  But you can see solid bands of red, blue and green.  At some angles there are hints of brown and purple.  When I showed my picture to Cloudschatze, he commented "More like a circus fun house than a dungeon. Guess that could be scary."  Both C64 ports were done by Charles "Chuckles" Bueche.  He also did the Atari 8-bit port of Ultima II, which also used artifact color graphics, and did other programming work for the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers.  Given that "Chuckles" often found his way into the Ultima games as a seemingly witless court jester to Lord British, the above screenshot is likely a sample of a wicked sense of humor. I didn't take a picture of Ultima III's dungeon because its dungeon walls would look exactly like Ultima IV's. Unlike the 6567R8 captures, my capture card this time did not lead mislead me :

VIC-II 6567R56A Composite 

VIC-II 6567R56A S-Video

I cannot find many other C64 games where this kind of graphical effect is likely to have been intentionally used.  Wrath of Denethenor by Sierra Online might show some interesting patterns on its world map screens.  Origin's Moebius and Windtalker might also show some interesting colors as might be the title screen to Pinball Construction Set.  Ironically, Ultimas I, II and V for the C64 will not.  The first two games use pure wire-frame dungeons and Ultima V has far more detailed dungeon graphics than any of the previous games.  Here are a few more screenshots showing other games which use it, either intentionally or accidentally :

Seven Cities of Gold (edges of box)

Rad Warrior (status area)

Pinball Construction Set

One caveat about these findings is that I was using the R56A VIC-II in a later PCB than may have been used by the original programmer.  The original R56As have a reputation of showing washed out color and trailing ghost images, but when I put my R56A into Assembly 250407, the colors I saw were just as bold and sharp as my R8 VIC-II.  I would suggest therefore that the original C64 PCB, Assembly 326289 lacked good filtering and saturation circuitry to make the VIC-II shine.  The walls might be slightly fuzzier with Assembly 326289 as a result but I do not believe that any serious differences would be apparent.  There are a pair of passive component swaps that should be done when using an R56A in an Assembly 250407 PCB according to Schematic 251138, but my board already had the R56A suitable components installed even though it came with an R8.  Schematic 251138 is proof that using an R56A is an approved Commodore configuration and could have existed on systems that came from the factory.

Here are a pair of video captures I took of the composite video output.  The first shows the output from the 6567R8 and the second the 6567R56A :

A special thanks to my buddy Cloudschatze for providing the hardware that made this blog entry possible and the guys on NESDev who gave me the information I needed to establish this phenomenon.