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                The "Sleazy" Method That Gave the Apple II Color

   Josh Centers

   Al Alcorn, the creator of Pong and the man who gave Steve Jobs his big
   break in tech, did [1]a fascinating interview with IEEE Spectrum on how
   he added color to Pong. Alcorn paid his way through college as a TV
   repairman. While repairing TVs, he discovered a color bar generator
   that used a 'sleazy' method to generate color. Instead of synthesizing
   phases to generate colors properly, it used a crystal that took
   advantage of a quirk in NTSC to produce a color bar across the screen.
   Alcorn later adapted this to Pong to reduce hardware costs'these were
   the days when the 'code' for the game was all hardware. It was a
   rudimentary system since individual onscreen elements couldn't be
   colored'the color of each item depended on its place on the screen.
   Later, Alcorn showed the technique to Steve Wozniak, who would hang out
   with Jobs while he was working the night shift at Atari. Wozniak
   adapted it for the Apple II, and the rest is history.

   [2]Read original article

References

   1. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tech-history/silicon-revolution/al-alcorn-creator-of-pong-explains-how-early-home-computers-owe-their-color-to-this-one-cheap-sleazy-trick
   2. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tech-history/silicon-revolution/al-alcorn-creator-of-pong-explains-how-early-home-computers-owe-their-color-to-this-one-cheap-sleazy-trick

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