Bitmapped vs Text-mode home computers (was Re: modern serial terminal)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 6 Nov 2007 at 17:13, Ethan Dicks wrote:

> I would consider that after the MC68000 entered the home market,
> wrapped up as a Mac, an Atari, or an Amiga, the only "home" machine
> that still booted to text mode was the PC, which they still do.

A waste of hardware since the first VGA.  The old "backward 
compatibility" business wherein an application can stuff alpha data 
into a memory mapped buffer I suspect.  Did the IBM PGC emulate text 
mode in software or did it also use dedicated character-generation 
hardware?  My O&A isn't within handy reach...

Low-end home wapro boxes kept using text mode for a very long time 
after the 68K home systems came out.  But maybe that's stretching the 
notion of "home machine".

Cheers,
Chuck