The Graphics Chip Chronicles

Jon Peddie has put together short overviews of graphics chips that have made a major impact over the years. It is a fun look back at how we got to where GPGPUs are the norm.

This article series is in the Electronic History and System Design topics within our Series Library

Jon Peddie has put together short overviews of graphics chips that have made a major impact over the years. It is a fun look back at how we got to where GPGPUs are the norm.

Volume 1 (Download the eBook)

  1. NEC µPD7220 Graphics Display Controller: The first graphics processor chip
  2. EGA to VGA: The initiation of bit-mapped graphics and the chip clone wars
  3. Intel’s 82786 Intel’s First Discrete Graphics Coprocessor
  4. Texas Instruments TMS34010 and VRAM
  5. IBM's PGC and 8514/A
  6. IBM's VGA

Volume 2 (Download the eBook)

  1. IBM's XGA
  2. Number Nine's Imagine 128
  3. Nvidia's Riva 128
  4. 3Dfx's Voodoo

Volume 3 (Download the eBook)

  1. Microsoft's Talisman: The Graphics Chip That Never Was
  2. Artist Graphics GPX: Too Little Too Late
  3. Matrox MGA: The Longest-Produced Graphics Chip Ever
  4. AT&T Truevision’s Targa Set Standards Still Used Today

Volume 4 (Download the eBook)

  1. Intel i740: Big Investments, Major Embarrassments
  2. HP’s Artist Chip: Highly-Integrated With The System in Mind
  3. The History of the Integrated Graphics Controller
  4. Nintendo 64: Breakthrough Design, Genuine Disruption

Volume 5 (Download the eBook)

  1. Multi GPUs: A Story of Promise and Potential Failure
  2. S3 ViRGE: Trying for Virtual Reality Too Early
  3. ATI 3D Rage: One of the First "Free-D" Chips
  4. Geometry Engine: The Legendary Chip That Launched SGI

Volume 6 (Download the eBook)

  1. 3DLabs: From Glint to Permedia
  2. Yamaha's YGY611: A Pioneer in 3D Graphics
  3. Nvidia’s Quadratic Processor: The NV1
  4. Nvidia's GeForce 256: The First Fully-Integrated GPU

Volume 7 (Download the eBook)

  1. ATI’s Radeon 8500: First GPU With Hardware Tessellation
  2. Stellar's Short-Lived Run in 3D Graphics Processors
  3. Alphamosaic to Pi to Doom via Broadcom
  4. Tseng ET4000: Early Winner Falls Short on 3D

Volume 8

  1. NCR 7300: Ahead of Its Time, Behind on Customers