IBM 8514 is a graphics card 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 ...

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 ...

s with 256 colors at 43.5 Hz ( interlaced), 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 (for use with the 8514/A) which carries the same designation, 8514. The 8514 uses a standardised programming interface called the "Adapter Interface" or AI. This interface is also used by XGA, IBM Image Adapter/A, and clones of the 8514/A and XGA such as the

ATI Technologies ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., ...

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 ano ...

) 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 or CAD-illustration). The 8514 initially sold for for the adapter and for the 512KB memory expansion. The 8514/A required a Micro Channel architecture 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 Micro Channel architecture based PS/2's Video Graphics Array (VGA), and was delivered within three months of PS/2's introduction. Although not the first PC video card to support hardware acceleration, 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 functio ...

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 boards. Coprocessor boards (such as the TARGA Truevision series) were designed around special CPU or digital signal processor 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 globa ...

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 ...

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 r ...

* Windows 2.1 * Windows 3.x *

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 manufacturi ...

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 mo ...

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 ...

: ''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: ''Multisync Graphics Engine'' * IIT ''AGX'' and Tseng Labs ET4000 are also referenced as being IBM 8514 compatible.

History

Software support

Output capabilities

Clones

See also

References

Further reading