Hi guys,

Got a new piece of hardware for my Amiga 1200, namely a Graffiti graphics adapter. It fits into the RGB-port of the computer as you can see from the picture. The TV-cable is connected to the other end of it.

So, what is the Graffiti graphics adapter? The Individual Computers wiki has the answer:

“Graffiti is a graphics adapter for all Amiga computers. It uses a different data format in chipram, enabling more colours on OCS/ECS systems and faster chipram access on AGA systems. Graffiti changes the Amiga bitplaned graphics into a chunky pixel mode. I.e. one byte in memory represents a single pixel. The value of a byte selects it’s colour. The colour palette is 256 out of 262144 at a time. Possible resolutions are 640×256, 320×256, 160×256 and 80×256. In each mode, 256 colours are available, interlacing doubles the vertical resolution.”

Back in the 90’s I remember lots of people talking about it and how it would give Doom-clones a big boost in speed on the Amiga. Sadly there aren’t many games supporting the adapter, but Doom Attack, Gloom Deluxe, Nemac IV and Trapped 2 are examples of titles that does. I’m currently in the process of installing some of these and test them out with the Graffiti.

It is also worth mentioning that the Graffiti got the nickname “Shapeshifter-card”. The reason is that it improved the speed of Shapeshifter (a MAC emulator for the Amiga) dramatically.

The card came with drivers for Shapeshifter, as well as a picture viewer. I’ve tried the latter and it worked like it should.

Will post more in the future as I test out the adapter. If there are any Graffiti owners out there who has some tips, hints or download links, please let me know. Thanks.

Have a good weekend all and thanks for reading!