IBM 8514 is an IBM graphics computer display standard supporting a display resolution of 1024×768 pixels with 256 colors at 43.5 Hz (interlaced), or 640×480 at 60 Hz (non-interlaced). 8514 usually refers to the display controller hardware (such as the 8514/A display adapter.) However, IBM sold the companion CRT monitor (for use with the 8514/A) which carries the same designation, 8514.
8514 used 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 Mach 32 and IIT AGX. The interface allows computer software to offload common 2D-drawing operations (line-draw, color-fill, BITBLT) onto the 8514 hardware. This freed the host CPU for other tasks, and greatly improved the speed of redrawing a graphics visual (such as a pie-chart or CAD-illustration).
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8514 was introduced with the IBM Personal System/2 computers in April 1987. It was an optional upgrade to the Micro Channel architecture based PS/2's Video Graphics Array, 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 accelerator. Up until the 8514's introduction, PC graphics acceleration was relegated to expensive workstation-class, graphics coprocessor boards. Coprocessor-boards (such as the TARGA Truevision series) were designed around special CPU or DSP chips, which in theory could execute a compiled program. At least one Truevision model used the Texas Instruments TMS34010.) Fixed-function accelerators, such as the 8514, sacrificed programmability for better cost/performance ratio.
8514 was later superseded by IBM XGA.
Third-party graphics suppliers did not clone IBM's 8514 as extensively as VGA. Nevertheless, ATI did develop 8514-compatible graphics controllers: the Mach8 and Mach32. Both were sold in ATI-branded graphics boards.
This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.
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