Ethan sat in front of the computer, rummaging through a pile of floppy disks.
Looking back at the history of sports games during the 8-bit era, basketball had always been EA's comfort zone. So, if he wanted to beat them in the very genre they excelled at, it certainly wouldn't be easy.
Signing NBA stars could only help attract basketball fans, but in the end, what determined a game's success was still its quality. As he continued searching, a game disk he had casually picked up at RadioShack came into view.
One on One
Its full title was One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird.
Just as the name implied, it focused entirely on one on one street basketball showdown. Although it was a DOS title, it already featured mechanics such as dunks, blocks, and rebounds.
Ethan inserted the disk into the drive, and after a lengthy loading sequence, the game's roster finally appeared on the screen.
Objectively speaking, viewed through modern eyes, the game looked painfully primitive, but it had been released on PC back in 1983. Before that, the only basketball themed electronic game players had access to was an even rougher looking arcade title released in 1980.
For basketball fans of that era, this was the best game money could buy. Not to mention it featured licensed superstars Julius Erving and Larry Bird, so simply controlling one of them and facing off on the court had fulfilled countless players' basketball dreams.
EA would later release a sequel in 1988, improving the graphics even further while adding new features like a Slam Dunk Contest. Of course, by then Michael Jordan, already an NBA superstar, had joined the roster.
To be fair, it was an excellent game, but it had one major flaw.
It was a single-player game.
Even Jordan vs. Bird: One on One, released in 1988, merely added the option to select different CPU difficulty levels.
"Now that's an opening."
Controlling Bird, Ethan faked past Erving's defense, leapt into the air, and sank a perfectly accurate jump shot.
"I have to admit; EA really knew what they were doing back then."
Watching the basketball trace a smooth arc through the air, slow by modern standards, but beautifully animated, Ethan pondered quietly.
The game wasn't nearly as outdated as it looked, and what truly held One on One back wasn't its design, it was the limitations of the platform it ran on.
During this era, PC games were already far behind arcade machines and home consoles right from the starting line.
A general-purpose computer could never dedicate all of its hardware to gaming the way the NovaBox could.
On machines like the Commodore 64, implementing something as basic as smooth scrolling was enough to squeeze every last drop of graphics performance out of the hardware.
"If it were running on the NovaBox..."
Ethan quickly calculated the NovaBox's hardware capabilities in his head, and suddenly, another basketball game from the 1980s came to mind.
Double Dribble.
A fast-paced, arcade-style basketball game developed by Konami, released for both arcades and the NES.
Unlike One on One, this was a genuine console title. Its superior hardware allowed it to achieve visuals impressive enough that even by NovaBox standards they would still be considered excellent.
But beyond the smoother, faster graphics, what truly made it remarkable was its gameplay.
It was arguably the first true basketball video game, as it allowed full 5 on 5 matches with all ten players moving simultaneously on the court, complete with passing, dribbling, and support for two player competition.
That was simply outrageous.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this astonishing game that EA later became determined to enter the home console market by any means necessary, eventually reverse engineering Sega's Mega Drive.
Now that he had a direction, there was no reason to delay any longer, so Ethan immediately headed for MicroNova.
Ever since SGI and a group of brilliant graphics chip engineers had joined the company, MicroNova had shed its old garage workshop image and moved into a proper office building.
It had finally become a real company.
"Under the EGA specification, every RGBI signal line is digital, meaning it can only represent two states: 1 or 0."
Standing before a whiteboard, Vivian enthusiastically explained her proposal to the gathered engineers.
"That means EGA can only produce 2⁴, or 16 colors."
"So, I designed this new Video Graphics Array (VGA) specification, replacing the digital RGB signals with analog ones, "
Noticing Ethan standing at the doorway, she immediately stopped and waved excitedly.
"Ethan! Perfect timing! We've finished the new standard!"
"So fast?!"
Ethan froze for a moment before a smile spread across his face. Originally, he'd only come to see whether they could develop a dedicated graphics enhancement chip for Double Dribble's cartridge to better support its fast-paced visuals.
But a brand-new display standard, that would change far more than just one game.
"Actually, we owe a lot to Jensen's idea."
"We added a DAC, a Digital to Analog Converter, onto the VGA graphics card."
She led Ethan over to a CRT television. Beside it sat a crude circuit board covered in jumper wires, with three rotary knobs mounted on top.
A DAC's purpose was straightforward; it converted binary digital signals into continuously variable analog voltages.
Before Vivian could even begin explaining further, Ethan's expression already told her everything.
"This is exactly it!"
Compared to the older EGA and CGA standards, VGA's greatest breakthrough was transforming color signals from digital into analog.
Under the original EGA specification, a color could only be represented using values such as RGB (1, 0, 1). Colors were produced simply by turning each individual red, green, or blue channel on or off.
This system naturally worked well with CRT displays, because inside a CRT television, every pixel was controlled by three electron guns, and when a powerful electron beam struck the red phosphor, it emitted red light.
Vivian switched on the television and slowly turned the three knobs. As she adjusted them, the colors on the screen began changing.
Not switching abruptly from red to blue but smoothly transitioning between them. As the red signal gradually decreased and the blue signal increased, the displayed color shifted seamlessly in real time.
"We changed the three-color channels into analog signals, allowing us to precisely control the intensity of each electron gun independently."
She pointed towards a Z80 chip mounted on the circuit board.
"Each color channel is controlled with 6-bit precision, allowing 64 intensity levels."
Although that was still two bits short of the 8-bit, 256-level color channels common in later generations, for the current era, this was nothing short of magic.
"Sixty-four... times sixty-four... times sixty-four..."
Ethan muttered to himself.
"That's over 260,000 available colors!"