Professional Graphics Controller

Professional Graphics Controller was an IBM XT graphics card manufactured by IBM. It was very advanced, providing both 2D and 3D graphics accelerator for CAD applications. It consisted of 3 interconnected ISA cards, and in fact contained a separate computer.

Related Topics:
IBM XT - Graphics card - IBM - 2D - 3D - Graphics accelerator - CAD - ISA

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Introduced in 1984, and obsoleted by 1987, the Professional Graphics Controller (often called "Professional Graphics Adapter" and sometimes "Professional Graphics Array") offered slightly higher resolution and color depth than the EGA, up to 640 x 480 and 256 colours at 60 frames/second. It was intended for the computer-aided design market and included 320 K of display RAM and an on-board microprocessor, which gave it the ability to do 3-d rotation and clipping of images. This display adapter consumed two of the expansion slots on the XT or AT motherboard. While never widespread in consumer-class personal computers, its $4,290 list price compared favorably to $50,000 dedicated CAD workstations of the time.

Related Topics:
EGA - Computer-aided design - RAM - Motherboard - Workstation

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In addition to its native 640 x 480 mode, the PGC optionally supported the text and graphics modes of the Color Graphics Adapter.

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