3dfx: So powerful, it's kind of ridiculous (2023)

In 1988, Silicon Graphics made a series of workstation computers that were based upon two pieces of technology: the MIPS CPU and the IRIS graphics system. The latter included both a hardware 3D graphics accelerator and the IRIS GL API. IRIS GL would later become OpenGL. These machines all ran IRIX (a derivative of System V), and these sold decently well in the workstation market for those who needed serious 3D power. With IRIS’s graphics hardware and API, SGI felt that they may have a product for the PC space. This was the IrisVision card. The first push was with Micro Channel. They added 15-pin VGA with a passthrough input connector. Daughter boards provided framebuffer and z-buffer memory. Once the MCA card was made, work began on a 16 bit ISA slot variant of the card for the compatibles market. While the primary card was slightly different from the MCA version, the daughter boards were the same. SGI didn’t know exactly how to sell this card, and IrisVision was spun off as Pellucid. ... Read full article.