Wow... for that hardware, a 4.77MHz 8088 PC with CGA graphics and Sound Blaster audio, those stats are overwhelming:
1. Variable frame-rates up to 60 FPS.
2. Audio rates to 45kHz.
3. 16 colors through composite artifacting.
4. Simultaneous color and B&W output.
On a related note, you will probably be interested in Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly Language. From the "README.md":
"This is the source for an ebook version of Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly Language: Volume I, Knowledge, originally published in 1990. Reproduced
with blessing of Michael Abrash, converted and maintained by James Gregory. Original conversion produced by Ron Welch."
It's worth pointing out (on a quick scan I don't see this called out in the article itself) that the preprocessing involved in generating these executables is almost certainly not meaningfully possible on a 5150 PC.
So while this might run on 1978-era hardware, it wouldn't have been possible for 1978-era hackers to create.
Seems like memory would be the only limiting factor here, i.e. storing both the previous and current frame, computing the difference between the two, then sorting the runs. My hunch is it should be possible with a large enough HDD for swap space (obviously you'd have to swap yourself) and waiting a day to render a short movie.
Edit: and now I realise you need a movie source, which in 1978 means a VHS tape most likely. Reading that and converting it to a sequence of dithered frames (or "just" straight 24-bit 4:4:4 YUV) will definitely need some special hardware.
Incredible work! If only we had this kind of ingenuity today to get a simple graphics card working with Linux! Imagine the possibilities. One day, I might even have an option in Ubuntu to change the refresh rate to 60hz without entering 'xrandr -r 60' into the console EVERY DAMN TIME I REBOOT. Now, I know I'm going on a limb with this next one, but imagine if someone had the intelligence to code a universal installer that works every time and installed every piece of needed software all at once with zero user interaction??! I'm getting a bit craaazy here, but imagine effortless uninstalls! Mind blown.
Edit: "One more thing" as I get voted down by those in denial. Imagine this brilliance getting Linux to talk to a relatively unheard of device called an iPhone 5s! It sure would be nice getting pictures and video off this damn phone so I can free up space!
> imagine if someone had the intelligence to code a universal installer that works every time and installed every piece of needed software all at once with zero user interaction
IMHO you are being down voted for being off topic, not necessarily for the accuracy of your thoughts. (I did not downvote you BTW, I take pitty on gray comments)
> getting Linux to talk to a relatively unheard of device called an iPhone 5s! It sure would be nice getting pictures and video off this damn phone so I can free up space!
I do it all the time. All it takes is to plug the phone in.
Answering the dead question, it's an iPhone 5s running the latest iOS. The only catch is that I have to plug it unlocked and tell it to trust my computer (running Ubuntu 14.04) when the prompt pops up. It imports pictures into Shotwell just fine. I also tested it with an iPhone 4 (not 4S) and it worked just the same.
1. Variable frame-rates up to 60 FPS.
2. Audio rates to 45kHz.
3. 16 colors through composite artifacting.
4. Simultaneous color and B&W output.
On a related note, you will probably be interested in Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly Language. From the "README.md":
"This is the source for an ebook version of Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly Language: Volume I, Knowledge, originally published in 1990. Reproduced with blessing of Michael Abrash, converted and maintained by James Gregory. Original conversion produced by Ron Welch."
https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-zen-of-asm