Thanks to Prahlad we have the option of doing the video with a dedicated high-speed 8052 derivative. I think this would be practically limited to about 320x160 and probably would just be 8-bit grayscale. The advantage to this would be the entire system would be 8052-based. The output would presumably be a TV.

The other option we have is using some video-specific chips or cards to handle video. I suspect this could give us VGA quality color. The only disadvantage I see is that a larger portion of the design wouldn't be based on the 8052 itself but rather "outsourced" to the video specific hardware. Do we care? The output presumably would be a VGA monitor.

Should we go for a more graphically limited design that is based exclusively on the 8052 or a more functional and potentially impressive system that would leave video functionality to video-specific hardware and leave the 8052 for the real processing side rather than trying to make it drive the video?

I'm not sure which I prefer. It'd be great if it were pure 8052 but on the other hand I suspect we can get some spectacular results if we let video hardware drive the video.

Regards,
Craig Steiner