Custom PC Magazine Highlights WC1 in VGA Retro Tech Article

AD found a neat article in the December 2021 issue of Custom PC. It's a piece on the history and origins of VGA. It's a good story, but Wing Commander doesn't actually appear in the text of the article. Rather, a screenshot from WC1 (with its 320x200 256 color graphics) is used as the headliner - and most notably - on the cover of the magazine. It's not too often these days that you find professional print mags with Wing Commander on the front, so we thought it was worth pointing out. You can actually order a copy for £5.99 here. If you're not in it for the collectible, you can also find the whole article here and even download a PDF of the entire magazine.

VGA didn’t put the PC at the graphics cutting edge, but it did put it back in the race. The new hardware supported resolutions of up to 640 x 480 with 16 colours, or 320 x 200 with up to 256. What’s more, those 256 colours could be redefined at any time, from an 18-bit palette of 262,144 colours. With VGA, you could put a photo on the screen and it kind of looked like a photo. Artists could create 2D images with sophisticated colour and shading effects. PC games went from looking shocking to looking seriously awesome. VGA was literally a game changer.