TMS34010

The TMS34010, developed by Texas Instruments and released in 1986, was the first programmable graphics processorintegrated circuit. While specialized graphics hardware existed earlier, such as blitters, the TMS34010 chip is a microprocessor which includes graphics-oriented instructions, making it a combination of a CPU and what would later be called a GPU.

The chip was central to over twenty-five arcade video games from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, primarily from Atari Games and Midway Games. It was first used in Narc in 1988, then other games including Hard Drivin', Smash TV, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam. It was also part of computer workstation video accelerator boards in the 1990s.

Texas Instruments' next major evolution of the chip was the TMS34020 and a companion floating point coprocessor. The emphasis of the combo was 3D rendering, but it was also used in place of the TMS34010 in the non-polygonal arcade games Revolution X and Battletoads Arcade.