IBM 8514 is a

graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...

manufactured by IBM and introduced with the

IBM PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...

line of personal computers in 1987. It supports a

display resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is ...

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...

s with 256 colors at 43.5 Hz (

interlaced Interlaced video (also known as interlaced scan) is a technique for doubling the perceived frame rate of a video display without consuming extra bandwidth. The interlaced signal contains two fields of a video frame captured consecutively. This ...

), or at 60 Hz ( non-interlaced). 8514 usually refers to the

display controller A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing ...

hardware (such as the 8514/A

display adapter A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...

). However, IBM sold the companion CRT

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West ...

(for use with the 8514/A) which carries the same designation, 8514. The 8514 uses a standardised

programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...

called the "Adapter Interface" or AI. This interface is also used by XGA,

IBM Image Adapter/A The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...

, and clones of the 8514/A and XGA such as the

ATI Technologies ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a Canadian semiconductor industry, semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Fo ...

Mach 32 and IIT AGX. The interface allows computer software to offload common 2D-drawing operations ( line-draw, color-fill, and block copies via a

blitter A blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within a computer's memory. A blitter can copy large quantities of data from one memory area to anot ...

) onto the 8514 hardware. This frees the host CPU for other tasks, and greatly improves the speed of redrawing a graphics visual (such as a

pie-chart A pie chart (or a circle chart) is a circular statistical graphic, which is divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion. In a pie chart, the arc length of each slice (and consequently its central angle and area) is proportional t ...

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...

-illustration). The 8514 initially sold for for the adapter and for the 512KB memory expansion. The 8514/A required a

Micro Channel architecture Micro Channel architecture, or the Micro Channel bus, is a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987 which was used on PS/2 and other computers until the mid-1990s. Its name is commonly abbreviated as "MCA", alth ...

bus at a time when ISA systems were standard.

History

The 8514 was introduced with the

computers in April 1987. It was an optional upgrade to the

based PS/2's

Video Graphics Array Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now ...

(VGA), and was delivered within three months of PS/2's introduction. Although not the first PC video card to support

hardware acceleration Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware designed to perform specific functions more efficiently when compared to software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data that can be calcula ...

, IBM's 8514 is often credited as the first PC mass-market

fixed-function Fixed-function is a term canonically used to contrast 3D graphics APIs and earlier GPUs designed prior to the advent of shader-based 3D graphics APIs and GPU architectures. History Historically fixed-function APIs consisted of a set of function ...

accelerator. Up until the 8514's introduction, PC graphics acceleration was relegated to expensive

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

-class, graphics

coprocessor A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography o ...

boards.

Coprocessor A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography o ...

boards (such as the

TARGA Targa or TARGA may refer to: Car racing events * Targa Adelaide, in Australia * Targa Canada West, in British Columbia *Targa Florio, in Sicily, Italy, 1906–1977 * Targa Florio Rally, in Sicily, Italy, from 1978 * Targa High Country, in Victori ...

Truevision series) were designed around special CPU or

digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...

chips which were programmable. Fixed-function accelerators, such as the 8514, sacrificed programmability for better cost/performance ratio. Later compatible 8514 boards were based on the

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

TMS34010 The TMS34010, developed by Texas Instruments and released in 1986, was the first programmable graphics processor integrated circuit. While specialized graphics hardware existed earlier, such as blitters, the TMS34010 chip is a microprocessor wh ...

chip. Even though the 8514 was not a best-seller, it created a market for fixed-function PC graphics accelerators which grew exponentially in the early 1990s. The ATI Mach 8 and Mach 32 chips were popular

clones Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

, and several companies (notably S3) designed graphics accelerator chips which were not register compatible but were conceptually very similar to the 8514/A. The 8514 was superseded by IBM XGA. The

VESA VESA (), formally known as Video Electronics Standards Association, is an American technical standards organization for computer display standards. The organization was incorporated in California in July 1989To retrieve the information, searc ...

Group introduced a common standardized way to access features like hardware cursors, Bit Block transfers ( Bit Blt), off screen sprites, hardware panning, drawing and other functions with VBE/accelerator functions (VBE/AF) in August 1996.

Software support

Software that supported this graphic standard: *

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

Windows 2.1 Windows 2.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on May 27, 1988, as a successor to Windows 2.0. It was released with two different variants with differing CPU compatibility, also known as Windows/286 and ...

Windows 3.x Windows 3.x means either of, or all of the following versions of Microsoft Windows: * Windows 3.0 * Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windo ...

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

XFree86 XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and was available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the X ...

2.1.1 *

AutoCAD AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk, AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. ...

10 *QuikMenu *Any BGI software using IBM8514.BGI

Output capabilities

The 8514 offered: * in 256 colors out of 262,144 ( 18 bit RGB) * in 256 colors out of 262,144 * text mode with 80×34 characters * text mode with 85×38 characters * text mode with 146×51 characters Latter clone board offered additional resolutions: * with

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

and 24-bit color depths * with 16-bit and 24-bit color depths

Clones

In the late 1980s, several companies cloned the 8514/A often for the ISA bus. Notable among those was

Western Digital Western Digital Corporation (WDC, commonly known as Western Digital or WD) is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology produc ...

Imaging's PWGA-1 (also known as the WD9500 chip set), the Chips & Technologies 82C480, and ATI's Mach 8 and later Mach 32 chips. In one way or another, the clones were all better than the original with more speed, enhanced drawing functionality and overall improved video mode selections. Clone support for non-interlaced modes at resolutions like 800×600 and 1280×1024 was typical, and all clones had longer command queues for increased performance. *

: the ''Mach8'', ''Mach32'', ''Graphics Vantage'' and ''8514/Ultra'' *

Chips and Technologies Chips and Technologies (C&T), founded in Milpitas, California in December 1984 by Gordon A. Campbell and Dado Banatao, was an early fabless semiconductor company. Its first product, announced September 1985, was a four chip EGA chipset that h ...

: ''F82C480 B EIZO - AA40'' and ''F82C481 Miro Magic Plus'' *

Matrox Matrox Graphics, Inc. is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers and workstations. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, it was founded in 1976 by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić. The name is derived from "Ma" in Mat ...

: ''MG-108'' * Paradise Systems: ''Plus-A'', Renaissance ''Rendition II'' *Desktop Computing: ''AGA 1024'' *

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

: ''Multisync Graphics Engine'' * IIT ''AGX'' and

Tseng Labs ET4000 The Tseng Labs ''ET4000'' was a line of SVGA graphics controller chips during the early 1990s, commonly found in many 386/ 486 and compatible systems, with some models, notably the ''ET4000/W32'' and later chips, offering graphics acceleration. Of ...

are also referenced as being IBM 8514 compatible.

History

Software support

Output capabilities

Clones

See also

References

Further reading