History of the Video Card

A video card is the device that allows you to view graphics, pictures, and other visual media used with computers. Video cards developed alongside computers, when computers started to include screens so users could see information they needed. As computers improved and became more advanced, so did the video cards that went with them. Today's video cards are much smaller, and much faster, than their predecessors.

IBM

IBM first created the video card in 1961 as a replacement to printed cards, which were used by the large computers of the day. IBM featured the first video card included on a mass-produced computer in the Model 8088, which was the first personal computer.

MDAs

Monochrome Display Adapters (MDAs), the original name of video cards of the time, were only able to work when the computer was in text mode. These cards had 4MB of memory, and fit 80 columns and 25 lines per screen. The only color available for a screen at the time was green. Later in the '80s red was also a screen color, but the card only displayed either red or green. Several types of video cards were introduced during the '80s.

VGAs

The VGA (Video Graphics Adapter) became the next generation video card. VGAs became more accepted than the earlier MDAs because of their ability to display a range of colors at a better resolution. Because of this, many companies such as Cirrus Logic and ATI entered production at a time when computer components were widely adaptable with each other regardless of manufacturer. Soon after came Super VGA (SVGA), which boasted a 256-color range and featured up to 2 MB of memory. This standard lasted through the middle of the 1990s, until the next generation of video card arrived.

3D

First created in 1995, 2D and 3D video cards had the ability to show multi-dimensional graphics that were previously unavailable. This was then followed two years later by Voodoo, which was the most powerful graphics chip at the time. Together the video card and chip accelerated the ability of software developers to create more in-depth graphics. Comparable chips such as TNT were created soon after. Intel designed an accelerated graphics port. This helped gap the problems between the video card and the new microprocessors. In 1999 NVIDIA became the dominant manufacturer in the video card market. 3D video memory has now improved from 32 MB up to 125MB.

Future

Video graphics technology continues to improve to meet the demands of computer technology. Video cards, now basically the size of a computer chip, are being used in new micro applications. These include phones, iPods, game consoles, digital cameras and notebook computers. By 2006 VRAM (video memory) was able to reach a range of 800 MB.

References

• encyclopedia.jrank.org
• computerhope.com
• fastsilicon.com