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| Release date | 1989; 37 years ago (1989) |
|---|---|
| Architecture | TMS34010, TMS34020 |
| Cards | |
| Entry-level | TIGA-340 (TMS34010 Graphics System Processors based) |
| Mid-range | Number Nine Visual Technology Peeper and GX series,Hercules Graphics Station and Chrome,Texas Instruments TIGA Diamond and TIGA Star |
| History | |
| Predecessor | VGA |
| Successor | VESA,Super VGA |
Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture (TIGA) is a graphicsinterface standard created byTexas Instruments that defined the software interface tographics processors.[1] Using this standard, any software written for TIGA should work correctly on a TIGA-compliant graphics interface card.[2] Texas Instrument'sTMS34010 and TMS34020 Graphics System Processors (GSP) were the original TIGA-compliant graphics processors.[3][4]
The TIGA standard is independent of resolution andcolor depth which provides a certain degree offuture proofing. This standard was designed for high-end graphics. However, TIGA was not widely adopted. Instead,VESA andSuper VGA became thede facto standard for PC graphics devices after theVGA.
The primary manufacturers of mainstream TIGA cards for the PC clone market includedNumber Nine Visual Technology andHercules.Number Nine Visual Technology graphics cards using Texas Instruments' TIGA co-processors were made from about 1986 to 1992, including thePepper andGX series.[5][6][7]Hercules manufactured cards such as theGraphics Station andChrome lines which were marketed primarily toward users ofMicrosoft Windows.[8][9][10]
Desktop ComputingAGA 1024 card was capable of emulating TIGA standards, as well as theIBM 8514.[11]
In the early 1990s, Texas Instruments France (which had marketing control for TIGA architecture and GSP chipsets in Europe) experimented with manufacturing and selling its own range of consumer oriented video cards based on TIGA and aimed at speeding up the user experience of Windows. These products were namedTIGA Diamond (34020 based) andTIGA Star (34010 based), and provided a platform for selling TI DRAM and video palette chips as well as the GSP chips themselves.[12]
Despite the superiority of the technology in comparison to typical Super VGA cards of the era, the relatively high cost and emerging local bus graphics standards meant that IT distributors and PC manufacturers could not see a niche for these products at consumer level.
The (limited) success of the graphics cards paved the way for products based upon various derivatives and clones of IBM's8514 architecture.[citation needed] Part of the effort to make graphics accelerators useful required TI to convince Microsoft that the internal interfaces to its Windows Operating System had to be adaptable instead of hard-coded. Indeed, all versions of Windows prior toWindows 3.0 were "hard-coded" to specific graphics hardware.
