Professional Graphics Controller (PGC, often called Professional Graphics Adapter and sometimes Professional Graphics Array) is a graphics card manufactured by IBM for PCs. It consists of three interconnected

PCBs Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by t ...

, and contains its own processor and memory. The PGC was, at the time of its release, the most advanced graphics card for the IBM XT and aimed for tasks such as

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 ...

. Introduced in 1984, the Professional Graphics Controller offered a maximum resolution of 640×480 with 256 colors at a

refresh rate The refresh rate (or "vertical refresh rate", "vertical scan rate", terminology originating with the cathode ray tubes) is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displays a new image. This is independent from frame rate ...

of 60 hertz—a higher resolution and color depth than CGA and EGA supported. This mode is not BIOS-supported. It was intended for the computer-aided design market and included 320 KB of display

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and an on-board Intel 8088 microprocessor. The 8088 ran software routines such as "draw polygon" and "fill area" from an on-board 64 KB

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so that the host CPU didn't need to load and run these routines itself. While never widespread in consumer-class personal computers, its list price, plus $1,295 display, compared favorably to US$50,000 dedicated CAD

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 ...

s of the time (even when the $4,995 price of a PC XT Model 87 was included). It was discontinued in 1987 with the arrival of

VGA 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 no ...

and 8514.

Software support

The board was targeted at the CAD market, therefore limited software support is to be expected. The only software known to support the PGC are IBM's

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4.5, Canyon State Systems CompuShow and

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. ...

2.5.

Output capabilities

PGC supports: * 640×480 with 256 colors from a palette of 4,096 ( 12-bit RGB palette, or 4 bits per color component). * Color Graphics Adapter text and graphics modes. Text modes use a font with 8×16-pixel character cells and have 400 rows of pixels.

Operation

The display adapter was composed of three physical circuit boards (one with the on-board microprocessor, firmware ROMs and video output connector, one providing CGA emulation, and the third mostly carrying RAM) and occupied two adjacent expansion slots on the XT or AT motherboard or the Expansion Unit; the third card was located in between the two slots. The PGC could not be used in the original IBM PC without the 5161 Expansion Unit due to the different spacing of its slots. In addition to its native 640×480 mode, the PGC optionally supported the documented text and graphics modes of the Color Graphics Adapter, which could be enabled using an onboard jumper. However, it was only partly

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-compatible with CGA.

Related monitor

The PGC's matching display was the IBM 5175, an

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that is unique to it and not compatible with any other video card without modification. With hardware modification, the 5175 can be used with

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, and various other analog

video sources. Some surplus 5175s in VGA-converted form were still sold by catalog retailers such as COMB (Close Out Merchant Buyers) as late as the early 1990s.

Hardware clones

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 ...

PG-640, PG-1280 and QG-640 (for the DEC

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) * Dell NEC MVA-1024 card *

Everex Everex ("Ever for Excellence!") is a defunct American manufacturer of desktop and notebook personal computers. It was established in 1983 and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company was founded by Steve Hui, John Lee and Wayne Cheung ...

EPGA *

Orchid Technology Orchid Technology was a privately held company founded by Le Nhon Bui in 1982. History 1982 to 1984 The company's original flagship product was its PCNet card, a 1 megabit-per-second LAN (networking) card for IBM PCs and clones. Notably, the acro ...

TurboPGA *Vermont Microsystems IM-640, IM-1024

References

;Notes *Mueller, Scott (1992) ''Upgrading and Repairing PCs, Second Edition'', Que Books, - which says 3 slots and "adapter"
A Professional Graphics Controller
by K. A. Duke and W. A. Wall, IBM Systems Journal

External links

{{Computer display standard Graphics cards Display technology IBM video hardware