VAX graphics

In article <4B86E75E.2070403 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes: I don't know what machine room presence it would have other than some boards inserted into the backplane. E&S equipment had its own cabinet because it had a "GPU". Memory mapped frame buffers aren't much more than array of memory chips and a simple video scanout circuit. You can easily fit all of that onto one or two PDP-11 or VAX boards without requiring an additional cabinet, even with SSI/MSI parts. In 1984 I was an undergrad helping a grad student with his hardware project for his PhD. I wirewrapped what was then considered a high density layout for a graphics system with lots of smarts. A memory array, a bus interface, and a video scanout circuit are all fairly straightforward to implement with period parts in a board or two. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>