{"id":920,"date":"2012-12-03T14:23:52","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T19:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=920"},"modified":"2012-12-11T13:54:59","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T18:54:59","slug":"retro-gif-of-the-week-the-empire-strikes-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/920\/retro-gif-of-the-week-the-empire-strikes-back","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro GIF of the Week ]<\/span> The Empire Strikes Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Star<\/a>Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size<\/a> ] [ 2X Zoom<\/a> ]<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Empire Strikes Back<\/em> is one of my favorite films of all time, so I have always cherished this particular image that someone uploaded to my BBS<\/a> in the early 1990s. It depicts two AT-ATs<\/a> walking through the snow in a scene recalling the Battle of Hoth from the 1980 film.<\/p>\n

Its 16-color 640×400 format suggests a few possibilities as to its origin platform. IBM’s little-used MCGA<\/a> standard (introduced in 1987) could do 640×400 at 16 colors, and so could a few “extended EGA” graphics cards on the IBM PC platform.<\/p>\n

But so could the Amiga<\/a> — in fact, 640×400 at 16 colors was its original high-end graphics mode. Since many early GIF files originated in the graphically rich culture of the Amiga (a machine well-known for its graphics capabilities), and since this file is dated 1988, and since MCGA adapters were scarce, I’d say this image most likely originated on the Amiga platform.<\/p>\n

[ Update: 11\/04\/2012<\/strong> – Since I originally wrote this, I’ve realized that this AT-AT image uses a 12-bit (4096) color palette (from that palette the artist could use 16 colors on screen at a time), which was unique to the Amiga platform. So this image definitely originated on an Amiga. ]<\/p>\n

By the way, this image is actually signed by the artist. You can see a small “BMW” in the lower right corner (and we’re not talking about the German car company here). If anyone knows who BMW is, please leave a comment. That would be fascinating to find out.<\/p>\n

[ Wondering what a GIF is? Read the introduction to this column<\/a>. ]<\/em><\/small><\/center><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Retro GIF of the Week Fact Box<\/strong><\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source File Name:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nATAT.GIF<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source File Date:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nJune 26, 1988<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source File Format:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nGIF – 87a (non-interlaced)<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dimensions:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\n640 x 400 pixels<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Color Depth:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\n4-bit (16 color), 12-bit palette (4096 colors)<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Origin Platform:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nAmiga<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Derived From:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nUnknown<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Creation Date:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\ncirca 1988<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Artist:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nBMW<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nIf you know more about the origin of this image, please leave a comment.<\/font><\/small>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size ] [ 2X Zoom ] The Empire Strikes Back is one of my favorite films of all time, so I have always cherished this particular image that someone uploaded to my BBS in the early 1990s. It depicts two AT-ATs walking through the snow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,20,7,27,47,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-bbs-history","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-gif-of-the-week","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}