Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-09, 01:56:

Quick update. This is also interesting..:
https://paleotronic.com/2020/06/02/the-busine … r-aided-design/

I don't mean to sway off topic, but this article mentions Macs. I remember back in the mid 90ies, when I was in my teens trying to decide on a career path in IT, everyone was saying that all the graphic design was done on Macs. At that point Windows 95 was already out, and plenty of graphic software suits for the PC.

I understand Apple had GUI well before Windows, first with Lisa and then Macintosh line of computers, and I imagine they had graphic software developed for Lisa and Mac OS before similar software was available for Windows. But I wasn't able to find much information on their hardware graphic solutions. I understand for instance on their first Apple I computer they had a built in terminal circuit with composite output, so these computers did not need an expensive terminal and could be used with any TV/monitor. But with Lisa and Macintosh line they had to have something more sophisticated.

Hi there! Thanks for your reply! 😀

I could be wrong, but think the Lisa and the b/w Macs had used a simple framebuffer and did most of their magic in the software.
The Macs had a set of routines in the ROM, the so-called Toolbox.
The QuickDraw system of Macs' System was like GDI on Windows.

So there could have been third-party graphics cards with a real graphics processor early on.
Something like a TMS34010 or TMS34020, I would imagine.
The b/w Macs of the 80s (the all-in-one Macs) had some internal expansion,
which could carry things like a processor upgrade, SCSI controller or another video board.

The Macintosh II (late 80s) had NuBus slots and could host graphics boards, network cards or sound cards.
In early 90s, the Pro AudioSpectrum 16 had been made in a Macintosh version for NuBus, even.

Speaking under correction, though.
By early 90s, the Macintosh had quite descent graphics cards.
The Formac graphics cards, for example. Formac=for Mac. 😀

Edit: @och There's some information about the Mac port.
https://through-the-interface.typepad.com/thr … terview-wi.html

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-06, 20:45:

Hi everyone, […]
Show full quote

Hi everyone,

Found something interesting.

https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/s-100-hi-re … ad-in-1985/3027

The S-100 board featured hi-res graphics 1024x1024 pels in 8 colours.

It used an intel 7220 graphics chip, which was licensed from NEC.
This advanced chip was also used in popular Japanese PCs such as PC-9801.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_%CE%BCPD7220

And now let's think about it what the average PC user had been aware of, in 1985.
A Tandy 1000 or an IBM PC with CGA. That's mind-blowing, I think.

Best regards,
Jo22

The Cromemco Dazzler and Matrox's early products might be of interest as well.

The IMSAI/Cromemco/S-100 bus /etc era is something I would really like to learn more about.

Here is another interesting one I found, the IBM PCG (Professional Graphic Controller). Looks like it is basically a separate computer, using an Intel 8088 CPU and 320k of RAM. I understand CAD, as well as other software that supported the PCG, had to have proprietary drivers to utilize the PCG, and offload graphic functions from the CPU. However, being that it is using a regular 8088, which is not designed for graphics, in a computer with a faster main CPU such as a 386 this card would probably become a "decelerator", as the main CPU would like handle all combined functions faster.

https://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/pgc.html

Here is where it gets interesting, apparently the PCG had 100% compatible clones, one of them being the Matrox PG-640, which used the NS32016 CPU instead of the 8088. Not sure how this 100% compatibility is achieved with a completely different chip - I understand it's architecture is more similar to the 68000 than x86.

http://www.cpu-ns32k.net/Matrox.html

And here is a link the the PG-640 manual, they claim 100% compatibility with the IBM PCG, and also claim 10 times faster than the PCG . Bold claim, but not inconceivable with the much faster NS32016 chip.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/matrox/277-MU-00 … ev_5_198707.pdf

On page 5 of the manual:

FEATURES
• IBM Professional Graphics Controller (PGC) 100% compatible
• 10 times as fast as the IBM PGC
• 640 x 480 resolution
• 256 colours from a palette of more than 16 million colours
• 32/16 bit display processor
• VLSI drawing processor
• 40,000 vectors/second
• 5,000 characters/second
• 1,200,000 pixel/second raster operations
• Enhanced instruction set includes text windows, stroke text, and raster operations
• IBM XT or AT compatible
• VDI compatible
• Demonstration and diagnostics programmes included
• Low Cost

What's interesting about CAD in particular, most of known CAD software has actually started on mainframes and mini computers in military, aerospace, and automotive industries. I understand companies in these industries often designed their own circuits and displays to handle CAD graphics. With the introduction of the microprocessor, companies started porting their CAD software for various microcomputers and various companies were designing boards to handle and accelerate graphics on these computers, as early as the S100 bus.

I remember seeing a video of a flight simulator from 1960ies or 70ies, with rendering quality and speed looking relatively modern. Can't find it for the life of me.

Edit - I think this is it, from 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-qb_jHRhA

Such a fascinating read.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/ct5-evans- … -it-work.57664/

darry wrote on 2025-04-14, 20:31:

The Cromemco Dazzler and Matrox's early products might be of interest as well.

The IMSAI/Cromemco/S-100 bus /etc era is something I would really like to learn more about.

Thanks, darry! That Super Dazzler seems intriguing! 😃

I'll have a look and see what else it can do!

och wrote on 2025-04-15, 11:57:

Here is another interesting one I found, the IBM PCG (Professional Graphic Controller). Looks like it is basically a separate co […]
Show full quote

Here is another interesting one I found, the IBM PCG (Professional Graphic Controller).
Looks like it is basically a separate computer, using an Intel 8088 CPU and 320k of RAM.
I understand CAD, as well as other software that supported the PCG, had to have proprietary drivers to utilize the PCG, and offload graphic functions from the CPU.
However, being that it is using a regular 8088, which is not designed for graphics, in a computer with a faster main CPU such as a 386 this card would probably become a "decelerator",
as the main CPU would like handle all combined functions faster.

Hi there, och, thanks for the links!
That PGC is very beautiful! Love the relationship to VGA! 🙂💙

About the speed.. I guess it's like with TIGA graphics boards.
These special purpose graphics boards were very powerful, but not very fast.
By early 90s, they were slower than the combo of 486 PC + ET-4000AX or another other fast, dumb VGA card.

How does this make sense?
Well, I think the idea with the TIGAs was that they off-load hard work from the PC and its CPU.
They un-burden the host system from work, so to say.
The PC can do the thinking (reading drawings from disk, do networking etc) and leave the whole graphics stuff up to the graphics board.

But still, your objections make sense. The 8088/8086 has a slow bus interface unit.
It takes lots of time to communicate with external world, in short.
Internally, it's not much better, either. It has to perform address calculation via its ALU.
The 80286 has its own circuit for this, NEC V20/30 are more efficient too.
Both groups also support INS/OUTS instructions (string input/output).

That makes me wonder how performance of PGC would have been if the 8088 had been replaced by a V20.
I know, this idea as such isn't ingenius. But in this case, it really makes me wonder! 😃

A possible problem is firmware, though. There's at least one instruction missing on V20 that was often beeing used by PC BIOS (hence the term "V20 BIOS" came to be).
If the PGC firmware had been modified, the V20 should work no issue.
By placing some V20 instructions, it could be more efficient, even.

PS: Some PGC vids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_9l6Ib0PUE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUS5yiu96i4

Many GPS navigators use a vector map format. Only three types of objects are used for terrain maps - a point, a segment, and a polygon. In turn, they can be of different types. For example, a blue segment is a river, and a black segment is a dirt road. The description format of these objects is very similar to the format of AutoCAD drawings. It seems that the same idea is used. By the way, Autocad 14 works perfectly and quickly on Pentium II-350 computers, 256MB of memory, and an S3Trio64 video card with 2MB of video memory. This is understandable, the drawing is just a list of primitives (the same point, segment, and polygon) with the coordinates of the vertices.

Quick update. This site covers the history of CAD: https://www.freecad.sk/en/cad-history

Also interesting is this quote here, from another site.

The Victor 9000, NEC something-or-other, Corvus Concept and Sage boxes were the screamers of the day, all running at pretty much the same speed of 4.77 mhz.
Each could support high resolution monochrome (800 x 400), and made useful tools.
The IBM PC and PC-XT, with their support for 12", 320 x 200 CGA 4-color resolution and 600 x 400 monochrome simply couldn't provide a useful production experience.

Source: https://www.datacad.com/time_machine/DataCAD_Stories.html

This is for all of those that think that IBM CGA was good when released,
but merely fell in miscredit years later when everyone had a PC with something better. 😀
Obviously, people in early 80s already had certain standards, too. 😉

(The part of 600x400 means 640x200, obviously.)

Postman5 wrote on 2025-04-17, 07:42:

Many GPS navigators use a vector map format. Only three types of objects are used for terrain maps - a point, a segment, and a p […]
Show full quote

Many GPS navigators use a vector map format.
Only three types of objects are used for terrain maps - a point, a segment, and a polygon.
In turn, they can be of different types. For example, a blue segment is a river, and a black segment is a dirt road.
The description format of these objects is very similar to the format of AutoCAD drawings.
It seems that the same idea is used.

Ah, I didn't know that! Thanks! I merely knew that some GPS navigators could be used as a display for APRS devices.
And in turn, the old APRS DOS program was using VGA graphics and vector maps, too. But that's another story.
I didn't know about the relationship between AutoCAD format and the GPS navi. Thanks again! ^^

Postman5 wrote on 2025-04-17, 07:42:

By the way, Autocad 14 works perfectly and quickly on Pentium II-350 computers, 256MB of memory, and an S3Trio64 video card with 2MB of video memory.
This is understandable, the drawing is just a list of primitives (the same point, segment, and polygon) with the coordinates of the vertices.

Thanks for the information, good to know! 😃
I'll have to build a CAD station, eventually! I do already have a drawing tablet but no plotter!

Well, I had one. Once, long ago. Sigh. A PenMan plotter, a turtle robot.
It used HPGL commands for drawing.
Back then, the trick was to print DXF/SKD drawings into an HP LaserJet driver (output: file), which then created an HPGL file! Or was it PCL 1.0 !?
I've used AutoSketch 2.0, btw. DOS version, from the 80s.

Anyway, the file then was copied to serial port, I think.
MODE utility was needed to set correct baud rate, I think.
Hm. I think there also was a conversion utility involved.. Not sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt0qeGYjzxw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR8enP09RPI

Edit: AutoCAD R14? Wasn't that the first Win32 version from mid-90s?
If so, there might be a chance getting it to run on Windows NT 4!
And OS/2 Warp, maybe, through the ODIN library.
That would be really fun! 😃

Edit: There's an LGR video about a nice Windows NT workstation. Not Pentium II, but close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_so2nUob1Y

Edit: What comes to mind now: I once had an Elsa Gloria XL or Gloria L.
The card had an Permediac2 chip and an S3 ViRGE 325 (for VGA compatibility).
The cool or odd thing was the following - on Windows NT, the drivers did support OpenGL via Permedia 2.
Whereas on Windows 95, the S3 ViRGE was being used as a 3D accelerator for DirectX.
So you had to have a dual-boot configuration to fully use the Gloria!

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-17, 21:04:

Source: https://www.datacad.com/time_machine/DataCAD_Stories.html […]
Show full quote

Source: https://www.datacad.com/time_machine/DataCAD_Stories.html

This is for all of those that think that IBM CGA was good when released,
but merely fell in miscredit years later when everyone had a PC with something better. 😀
Obviously, people in early 80s already had certain standards, too. 😉

(The part of 600x400 means 640x200, obviously.)

I don't think anyone really intends to overstate CGA. I mean, yes, IBM built CGA so that it could also generate NTSC signals in a pretty simple design. It certainly wasn't that fancy compared to what the professional market was capable of. They were envisaging people using their TVs, like other home computers. I don't think they had CAD necessarily in mind for CGA. They used a minimal amount of DRAM to keep costs low, again, home market. The third-party market answered for the needs of CAD, because PC popularity exploded. IBM addressed the professional needs for graphics with EGA, PGC, VGA, 8514, etc, all appearing rather quickly, once they saw they needed to provide something better than low resolution graphics.

Never mind, I have a bit of a love hate-relationship with CGA and love to make little sideblows from time to time. 🙂
Probably because it's neither fish nor fowl.
Because I think it's exactly between being useless and being useful.

Both Plantronics Color Plus in 640x200 pels 4c and Olivetti in 640x400 pels mono were useful for application GUIs and displaying drawings.
In this relation, CGA looks so unfinished, broken.

That's why I often think to myself: What was the point of it? It's barely good enough for "boring" business presentations.
A simple pie chart looks horrible in 320x200 4c, like it had been drawn by a Commodore ViC-20.

If it had been used on a projector on an business meeting in 1981-1983,
wouldn't the participants have felt offended by something that looks as if it had been drawn by a 4 years old with crayons?

A Commodore PET with a hi-res graphics board had offered much more in the 1970s.

The CGA hi-res mode of 640x200 mono was okay, but the bad aspect ratio made everything look pixelated and crude.
If it had supported colours/shades of gray, the outcome would have been less harsh.
That's why GEM in 640x200 4c doesn't look as bad as in plain 640x200 mono, I think.

(Edit: I know that the GEM driver is rather new, but PC Jr/Tandy 1000 had added 640x200 4c mode, too.
So it wasn't that of an uncommon resolution.
They've even went further and offered 640x200 16c mode.)

I really wonder though what happened in the minds of IBM engineers when designing CGA in 1981.
When you think of IBM, you're thinking of typewriters, mainframes, maybe terminals.
But not necessarily a home computer in a TV cart..

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/why … -3#post-1440195

(^I really like the picture, though. We used to have flokati rugs at home, too! 😃❤️)

PS: I do know about the limitations of domestic tube TVs of the time.
They had issues resolving more than 200 lines.
Well, the US American NTSC colour TVs via RF connection, at very least.

Both PAL video monitors via Composite and CCIR/RS-170 black/white TVs via RF could resolve around 300 lines.
- That's why at least in PAL regions, 512x256 pels wasn't uncommon in computing. The NDR Klein computer used that res, for example.

That's another reason why our PC clones do omitt colour carrier on composite outputs on the CGA cards, I suppose.
Without it (NTSC or PAL), signal quality is fine. Even in 80x25 text-mode and 640x200 resolution.

Also, I think, it wasn't being too uncommon to hack TVs for Composite input.
Especially the black/white portables in plastic chassis.:
They were good/safe, because they had required an internal power supply to generate everything from 12v DC;
rather than using mains power directly, like the "chippendale" models did (wooden TVs).

The only fraction to really have used household TVs were the C64 kids, I think.
There are photos on the internet were C64 kids had used cheesy wooden TVs from 1950s to 1970s as their computer monitors.
That was "ghetto style", so to say. Using grandpa's ancient SABA or Telefunken TV..

Looking back it's understandable that these kids couldn't afford, say, a Commodore 1702 video monitor.
But a little 9" green monitor surely didn't cost an arm and a leg.
Heck, even b/w studio monitors with a PL connector had been around since the 1960s, at least..

Edit: Here's a typical b/w portable, a Junost TV from former East Germany.
Such TVs were popular from 1970s onwards and could be modified for Composite aka VBS (BAS).
Such a basic TV was able to handle CGA in 640x200 just fine.

Edit: Here's a German thread about modifying a Junost for composite video.
One guy writes he did the mod in 1983 already.
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/148266

Edit: I forgot to mention, I don’t mean to argue here or try to defend my point of view (I'm full of flaws btw).
When I'm writing these long posts I'm rather doing a brainstorming or I am thinking out loud. 😅
I'm not doing that to sound smart or make some else look stupid or something.
I rather like talking/discussing such technical things. Hope you don't mind. 😅

Edit: Another interesting,early MS-DOS PC was the Sanyo MBC-550, from 1983.
It's native video circuit did support 640x200 pels in 8 colours.
Still, the text-mode quality is higher than that of CGA, I think.
https://pcmuseum.tripod.com/sanyo.htm
https://dosdays.co.uk/computers/Sanyo_MBC/sanyo_mbc55x.php
https://www.vintage-computer.com/machines.php?sanyombc550

Quick update. Another historic piece of something.

At this epoch, only a year after the launch of the IBM PC/AT, a typical AutoCAD display configuration was 640×480 pixels with between 8 and 256 colours.

https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/images/roadshow_1985/

So there essentially was the equivalent to Standard VGA in 1985, quality wise.
(Or Professional Graphics Controller, PGC in 640x480 256c rather.)

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-18, 22:14:

Both Plantronics Color Plus in 640x200 pels 4c and Olivetti in 640x400 pels mono were useful for application GUIs and displaying […]
Show full quote

Both Plantronics Color Plus in 640x200 pels 4c and Olivetti in 640x400 pels mono were useful for application GUIs and displaying drawings.
In this relation, CGA looks so unfinished, broken.

That's why I often think to myself: What was the point of it? It's barely good enough for "boring" business presentations.
A simple pie chart looks horrible in 320x200 4c, like it had been drawn by a Commodore ViC-20.

If it had been used on a projector on an business meeting in 1981-1983,
wouldn't the participants have felt offended by something that looks as if it had been drawn by a 4 years old with crayons?

Hah, business meetings not being "boring"? It'd fit right in 😉

I don't think for presentations, the PC would have mattered in those days. But the release of many third party alternatives meant the PC meant something... to somebody.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-18, 22:14:

I really wonder though what happened in the minds of IBM engineers when designing CGA in 1981.
When you think of IBM, you're thinking of typewriters, mainframes, maybe terminals.
But not necessarily a home computer in a TV cart..

Well, yes, IBM was thought of that way. They were trying to enter and dominate the new market... despite how they were ragged on, I kind of like how they went about it 😀

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-18, 22:14:

The only fraction to really have used household TVs were the C64 kids, I think. There are photos on the internet were C64 kids h […]
Show full quote

The only fraction to really have used household TVs were the C64 kids, I think.
There are photos on the internet were C64 kids had used cheesy wooden TVs from 1950s to 1970s as their computer monitors.
That was "ghetto style", so to say. Using grandpa's ancient SABA or Telefunken TV..

Looking back it's understandable that these kids couldn't afford, say, a Commodore 1702 video monitor.
But a little 9" green monitor surely didn't cost an arm and a leg.
Heck, even b/w studio monitors with a PL connector had been around since the 1960s, at least..

So I don't know that the home computer was ever considered a serious contender in the home during the time that TVs were considered to be the option. But it was a good option none-the-less to get computers introduced. So I can't say the home computer really took off with the TV hookup. So I didn't really see that much, but that probably was obsolete by the time I was old enough to start remembering.

I think the commodore 64 was more popular over other options in Europe. In the US, Atari was actually pretty popular, and I did see them hooked to TVs, for obvious reasons (and perhaps a bit, infamous). On the contrary, I only saw a few C64 over the years (again in their late days), and they usually had the monitor. But Atari was certainly around, and they seemed to eventually get replaced by the NES at the TV, by around 1990.

Compared to other computers, despite the initial offering on the PC not being really any better, I could see that the PC was certainly an option for CAD, but not in the home. I don't see that really happening at home, due to cost reasons. Likely CAD installs did use the third party high res options, at an additional cost. If you did see this at the time, you were probably lucky. My parents weren't in the engineering field, so we were more in the word processing, which is what alot of people started to bring home a PC for, and that's pretty much covered by what you could get in the store.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-18, 22:14:

Edit: Another interesting,early MS-DOS PC was the Sanyo MBC-550, from 1983. It's native video circuit did support 640x200 pels i […]
Show full quote

Edit: Another interesting,early MS-DOS PC was the Sanyo MBC-550, from 1983.
It's native video circuit did support 640x200 pels in 8 colours.
Still, the text-mode quality is higher than that of CGA, I think.
https://pcmuseum.tripod.com/sanyo.htm
https://dosdays.co.uk/computers/Sanyo_MBC/sanyo_mbc55x.php
https://www.vintage-computer.com/machines.php?sanyombc550

That is the first computer I used, the Sanyo MBC-550. We got it as our first computer, extremely discounted from what I was told, with the CGA-compatible option. Sure it demoed well in the store, and it was advertised as a "compatible" machine. But when you are new to the field, they did not explain the difference between MS-DOS compatible and IBM compatible. The several applications in the Sanyo offering that were originally written for the IBM had to be patched because popular apps then often did not follow the rules so to speak. That ended up being a major pain point. There wasn't enough software for it that was compatible. The Sanyo bombed badly, which is why it was discounted to push it out of the store inventory. It bombed so much Sanyo made sure their next PC didn't make that mistake.

I don't remember how compatible their CGA-enhanced option was. What we got probably was if it ran, it was just 4 color, like most would be if it had color graphics. But games again, probably didn't run because they actually depended on IBM hardware or BIOS. The bundled games looked nice, but that's what we played, or the BASIC text games, as you might imagine. The setup procedure with their bundled OEM MS-DOS disc was problematic. They system generally was pretty slow, I think slower than the IBM PC. That PC didn't last in our home very long. It was switched out by a Turbo XT, 100% IBM compatible, with hard drive, which was already on the market during that time, a much better deal for about the same amount of money. So frankly, If you were wanting hi-res in the late 80's, I think an EGA or VGA clone card would have been pretty viable. Early 80's? Kind of not much option, except really paying extra for more proprietary/business level stuff.

Funny enough, I think plantronics was really treated as CGA simply because that was more compatible that way. So no wonder there weren't any plantronics games. I have no idea if there was even CAD either, but somebody had to bought it for some application... Even IBM's EGA was mostly overlooked for a while, in games.

Hi, I think this XT did it right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp71oY1RFGk
It has a graphics card that has a toggle switch for color/mono and a monitor that can do handle both MDA and CGA signals.
So the user can switch between "daddling" playing some games and doing some real computer work.

Quick update. Just noticed that the cover of the Schneider PC1640 manual has the famous shuttle drawing (columbia.dwg).
So I guess this was a reference to the new EGA capabilities? That it now supports productivity software?
AutoCAD 2.x had EGA support, as far as I know. It was released in 1984, same years as EGA.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-04-19, 15:29:

Compared to other computers, despite the initial offering on the PC not being really any better,
I could see that the PC was certainly an option for CAD, but not in the home.
I don't see that really happening at home, due to cost reasons. Likely CAD installs did use the third party high res options, at an additional cost.

Cost benefit ratio is a good point, but not exactly in favor the IBM PC.
Because if we're looking very critical at it,
then unlike an expensive CAD workstation it wasn't being usable "as is".

The IBM PC when new was an 8088 microcontroller with 64KB of RAM and a typewriter keyboard.
To actually "get there", the IBM PC had to be heavily upgraded.
Which in the end lead to an very expensive workstation with little power.

Here's a propag.. err, advertisement video by Apple that demonstrates it visually.
https://youtu.be/w2ijvUP_LhI?t=502

Autodesk's use of the dual MDA/CGA setup maybe was a workaround to
do something usable with CGA's very poor colour resolution mode.

By having command prompt on the MDA monitor,
there was more space for drawing colour layers of CAD objects on the CGA monitor.

The advent of Hercules Graphics Card made this workaround optional, likely.
Use of Hercules card had been sort of recommended, even. There also were special graphics boards, too.
Hercules InColor Card wasn't bad either, though. Better than EGA.

Btw, AutoSketch 3 has support for Hercules InColor! Just noticed. 😃
Maybe version 2, as well, I would have to check.

Hercules InColor in 720x348 in 16c looks almost like 800x600 16c.
It's too bad it hadn't caught on more widely, I think.

In an alterate reality, the IBM PC perhaps had been used with Hercules/Hercules InColor.
Here CGA/EGA/VGA would have been IBM's proprietary home user graphics standards, maybe.

That Sierra Helicopter game looks very hi-res in Hercules InColor.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/5830/sierras-3 … or/screenshots/

Edit: Lotus 1-2-3 had a similar dual monitor setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7syVsEk7dU