I Got The First GPU Ever Made! (Now Have First Laptop GPU)

[AdamK47]

It irks me that people follow nVidia's marketing of the time and consider the GeForce 256 the first "GPU".

Anything displaying graphics on a display is processing graphics. Rendition, Matrox, and 3Dfx all made GPUs. Many long defunct companies before them made GPUs.

 

[AdamK47]

S3 cards were ubiquitous in the 90's, as far as 2D went they did the job. I didn't notice them being worse than Cirrus Logic chips of the same era. All that mattered then was having enough memory to display the colors and resolution desired, it was the extra memory that was $$$.

The S3 Virge. The world's first 3D decelerator.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The S3 Virge. The world's first 3D decelerator.

Yep, slower than software rendering in some games, on say, Pentium MMX.

 

[UNCjigga]

I remember thinking the GeForce 256 was to expensive and so I decided I would buy the Diamond Viper II with the GeForce killer chipset--S3's Savage 2000.

Worst hardware purchase I ever made.

S3b literally bought Diamond so they could vertically integrate and ship faulty chips with broken transform and lighting hardware that never worked. Replaced it with a Radeon LE which was the best bsng for the buck back then (so many driver hacks) and made me an instant ATI/AMD fanboy for life.

 

[crashtech]

The S3 Virge. The world's first 3D decelerator.

It was the butt of all the PC jokes back then for sure. Cheap, ubiquitous, and low performing. But I still think that anyone saddled with one probably got what they paid for.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Kid Cop: the wild story of Chicago’s most infamous police impersonator

He duped the PD as a teenager — and that was just the beginning.

www.theverge.com

The Gizmo J story?

 

[nakedfrog]

I remember thinking the GeForce 256 was to expensive and so I decided I would buy the Diamond Viper II with the GeForce killer chipset--S3's Savage 2000.

Worst hardware purchase I ever made.

S3b literally bought Diamond so they could vertically integrate and ship faulty chips with broken transform and lighting hardware that never worked. Replaced it with a Radeon LE which was the best bsng for the buck back then (so many driver hacks) and made me an instant ATI/AMD fanboy for life.

Ha, I had one of those too. It got me by until I got a refurb Radeon 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder HDTV. Used that to DVR stuff back in 2005-2007 until I got an actual DVR.

 

[bbhaag]

I still have an Orchid Voodoo 3D card in an ancient Pentium tower. It hasn't been fired up in ages, but probably still works. Wonder if it has any collectors value yet. Short answer seems to be yes; is this for real?

Yes this is true. The cost of vintage computer hardware has shot through the roof in the past 3-4 years especially items like mainboards, gpus, sound cards, certain cpus like the original Pentium Overdrive 83, and even period correct cases. Especially the ones that display the MHz of the cpu on the front panel.

I got into the hobby right before prices started to take off but even then I probably paid way to much for certain things like my Pentium Overdrive 83 cpu. The hobby has gotten so hot that there are modern reproductions of certain hardware like soundcards that are selling for over $300 USD. The one in this vid combines three soundcards in one but still......

I guess it just goes to show you that the rose colored glasses of nostalgia are a powerful force.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I gave away my Canopus Pure3d Voodoo card a long time ago. Kinda would be cool to play Carmageddon or Quake on it again.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I gave away my Canopus Pure3d Voodoo card a long time ago. Kinda would be cool to play Carmageddon or Quake on it again.

You still can with a Glide3D wrapper.

 

[vshah]

I used a Number 9 Revolution graphics card but I didn't own it. I owned a Hercules graphics card.

Edit: I think I also used a Number 9 Imagine card in the 1990s.

I had a number 9 card in my first machine. Still have it in fact. Love the embossed "ticket to ride:admit one" graphic on the pcb.

 

[Captante]

The first graphics card ever commonly REFERRED TO as a "GPU" *(barring revisionist-history) was in fact the GeForce 256. (which I bought on release from the Egg FWIW... an ASUS version)

Even Gizmo j can be right once in awhile!

 

[Captante]

I had a number 9 card in my first machine. Still have it in fact. Love the embossed "ticket to ride:admit one" graphic on the pcb.

I still have a fully working 2MB S3 Virge card from #9 lol. (forgot the exact model name)

I also had a "high-end" card from them called the "Imagine 128" that came in my 200 mhz Dell Pro 200n desktop.
(this was SLOWER in most games then the above S3 Virge!)

 

[Motostu]

Yes this is true. The cost of vintage computer hardware has shot through the roof in the past 3-4 years especially items like mainboards, gpus, sound cards, certain cpus like the original Pentium Overdrive 83, and even period correct cases. Especially the ones that display the MHz of the cpu on the front panel.

I got into the hobby right before prices started to take off but even then I probably paid way to much for certain things like my Pentium Overdrive 83 cpu. The hobby has gotten so hot that there are modern reproductions of certain hardware like soundcards that are selling for over $300 USD. The one in this vid combines three soundcards in one but still......

I guess it just goes to show you that the rose colored glasses of nostalgia are a powerful force.

Dang, I had a Gravis Ultrasound back in the day. Now I wish I'd held on to it.

 

[AdamK47]

The first graphics card ever commonly REFERRED TO as a "GPU" *(barring revisionist-history) was in fact the GeForce 256. (which I bought on release from the Egg FWIW... an ASUS version)

Even Gizmo j can be right once in awhile!

What do we call chip that processed graphics before nVidia's marketing department took over?

 

[manly]

The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in reference to the 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba) in the PlayStation video game console, released in 1994.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

NEXT Generation Issue #6 June 1995 : Imagine Media : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

NEXT Generation Issue #6 June 1995 Feature: Crossfire

archive.org

 

[Captante]

What do we call chip that processed graphics before nVidia's marketing department took over?

You can call it whatever you want. Like them or not Nvidia coined POPULARIZED (happy now?) the term "GPU" for the GeForce 256 first.

So AGAIN .... difficult as it might be to accept Gizmo j got one right!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Memorieeeeeessssss! https://www.neweggbusiness.com/smartbuyer/components/22-game-changing-video-cards-1981-2015/

 

[nakedfrog]

You can call it whatever you want. Like them or not Nvidia coined the term "GPU" for the GeForce 256 first.

So AGAIN .... difficult as it might be to accept Gizmo j got one right!

As manly posted, they evidently not
The cited source from Wikipedia:

Is it Time to Rename the GPU?

I was reminiscing last week about the GPU and having a friendly debate with my pals at Nvidia about the origin of the acronym. They of course claim they invented it, the device and the acronym, and within certain qualifications they did.

www.computer.org

The term was first used by Sony in 1994 with the launch of the PS1. That system had a 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba). The acronym was used before and after that referring to a geometry processing unit—GPU. TriTech introduced the Geometry Processor Unit in 1996 and Microsoft licensed it from them in 1998. It was part of a multi-chip solution and used the OpenGL API.

Did they popularize it as a marketing term for consumer-level cards with hardware T&L? Sure. But it's not "the first GPU ever made" in any meaningful sense of the phrase, only in a narrowly specific definition. It's fewer keystrokes than "video card" or "graphics card", so it has that going for it.

 

[manly]

Yes this is true. The cost of vintage computer hardware has shot through the roof in the past 3-4 years especially items like mainboards, gpus, sound cards, certain cpus like the original Pentium Overdrive 83, and even period correct cases. Especially the ones that display the MHz of the cpu on the front panel.

I got into the hobby right before prices started to take off but even then I probably paid way to much for certain things like my Pentium Overdrive 83 cpu. The hobby has gotten so hot that there are modern reproductions of certain hardware like soundcards that are selling for over $300 USD. The one in this vid combines three soundcards in one but still......

I guess it just goes to show you that the rose colored glasses of nostalgia are a powerful force.

I was aware of people assembling late 1990s era PCs for superior DOS gaming, but it's still bonkers. The prudent thing would be to part out my ancient Pentium PC before I end up recycling it. Sounds like I'd get some value out of the OG Voodoo card, Sound Blaster AWE32, and maybe the Pentium MMX. Still a small fraction of the 1996 dollars that I spent.

Yeah I saw the video on the re-release of the Sound Blaster card (AWE64? I forget). No idea how that even works from an intellectual property standpoint, since Creative Labs is still around? And how did they source the components? 🤯

 

[bbhaag]

Dang, I had a Gravis Ultrasound back in the day. Now I wish I'd held on to it.

Yeah the GUS is one of the more sought after soundcards and it is not uncommon for them to fetch around $300 USD. If its boxed with all original paperwork, disks, cables, ect then the skies the limit. I saw one go for $2000 a couple of years ago which is crazy for what it is but the community over at Vogons and on Youtube has built this hype around it being the best so it demands the price.

 

[bbhaag]

I was aware of people assembling late 1990s era PCs for superior DOS gaming, but it's still bonkers. The prudent thing would be to part out my ancient Pentium PC before I end up recycling it. Sounds like I'd get some value out of the OG Voodoo card, Sound Blaster AWE32, and maybe the Pentium MMX. Still a small fraction of the 1996 dollars that I spent.

Yeah I saw the video on the re-release of the Sound Blaster card (AWE64? I forget). No idea how that even works from an intellectual property standpoint, since Creative Labs is still around? And how did they source the components? 🤯

Yeah it's pretty nuts on what some of this old PC hardware from the ,80's, '90's, and early '00's is fetching these days but it has to be the just right hardware. Your run of the mill ram, cpu, soundcard, or gpu don't fetch as much but still more than 5-6 years ago when I got into it.

As far as I know most of these modern reproductions are using new old stock chips that have been sitting in warehouses for decades. How these guys find these chips is beyond me because it seems pretty wild that a GUS or SB sound chip from the late '80's or early '90's has just been sitting around for all this time.

As far as IP goes I think most companies just don't care. SoundBlaster sees it as a niche thing and just looks the other way and most of the other companies went bankrupt a decade or more ago so no one really cares.

 

[Captante]

As manly posted, they evidently not
The cited source from Wikipedia:

Is it Time to Rename the GPU?

I was reminiscing last week about the GPU and having a friendly debate with my pals at Nvidia about the origin of the acronym. They of course claim they invented it, the device and the acronym, and within certain qualifications they did.

www.computer.org

Did they popularize it as a marketing term for consumer-level cards with hardware T&L? Sure. But it's not "the first GPU ever made" in any meaningful sense of the phrase, only in a narrowly specific definition. It's fewer keystrokes than "video card" or "graphics card", so it has that going for it.

I wouldn't know .... Boily is parked next to BBS and (steaming) Moonpile on my ignore-list. (distinguished company!)

I can run with "popularized" though.

 

[AdamK47]

An actual 3Dfx advertisement. No way this could be printed today without mountains of backlash.

 

[Gizmo j]

I now have the first laptop GPU, the GeForce2go!