What was ATIs first video card?

S

Sabastian

Regular
Is there any place were we could see the history of ATI and their cards? IIRC ATI has an even longer history of being in the graphics industry/market then Nvidia. Anyhow, I was curious if someone might be able to devulge the name of this part or even a jpeg of it.

I though that this was appropriate since there are threads talking about lagacy hardware(NV1) and vapourware(NV30).
 
Yes, ATI has been around longer than nVidia.

I don't know what their first product was, but I once owned a Mach32 based product...that was one of the first PCI based video cards available, and was part of one of the first Pentium machines (those power hungry 60 Mhz varieties) I purchased back in, geeze, 1993?

I know ATI had products before that though.

Ahhh...the good ol' days of the "VESA VLB" vs. "PCI" slot wars. ;)
 
The Mach8 processor based cards were the first video cards I know of that ATI made. I don't think they made any consumer-targetted boards before that at least.

Edit: Oh, and no there wasn't a Mach 16.
it went:
Mach 8
Mach 32
Mach 64
Rage I, II, Pro
Rage128, Pro, MAXX
Radeon
etc.
 
Joe DeFuria said:
Yes, ATI has been around longer than nVidia.

I don't know what their first product was, but I once owned a Mach32 based product...that was one of the first PCI based video cards available, and was part of one of the first Pentium machines (those power hungry 60 Mhz varieties) I purchased back in, geeze, 1993?

I know ATI had products before that though.

Ahhh...the good ol' days of the "VESA VLB" vs. "PCI" slot wars. ;)
Click to expand...

yep, when having a card with a VBE would make you feel the wind comming from the very cutting edge of graphics tech, and you could finally select that soul-delivering 'vesa' option on the bottom of that screens-long vga support list in your favorite app.
 
Heh...ATI actually has drivers / software on their site for some really old Sh*t! ;)

This is what I could glean from ATI's "driver" pages:

http://mirror.ati.com/support/driver.html

The "oldest" product I see listed seems to be called the "Graphics Solution".

This appears to be an EGA adapter.

After that, it looks like ATI had VGA chip series (18800, 28800), and then the Mach 8 chip which powered the aforementioned 8514 Card among others. I think Mach 8 was ATI's first "Windows" GUI accelerator. After the Mach8 came the Mach 32 and Mach 64...all 2D Windows accelerators.

The first "3D" offering I think came in the form of one of the first "Rage" chip variants (Rage Pro?), which I believe followed the Mach 64. Though things get really confusing in the ATI Rage era...they had many variants of Rage chips and products..."Pro Turbos," and "Xpert@" and whatnot....

Many consider the first "decent" 3D chip from ATI to be the Rage 128....after which followed the Radeon...

Ah....that was a nice trip down memory lane. ;)
 
Joe DeFuria said:
The first "3D" offering I think came in the form of one of the first "Rage" chip variants (Rage Pro?), which I believe followed the Mach 64. Though things get really confusing in the ATI Rage era...they had many variants of Rage chips and products..."Pro Turbos," and "Xpert@" and whatnot....
Click to expand...

actually their Rage I was first 3D offering. after that they had Rage II+ and Rage Pro was next one. then they scaled down the Pro chip and named it Rage IIC+ which was sold as Pro in many places because "it had Pro technology." too bad because that chip was more like Rage II+ with AGP support.
Then came Rage 128 and so on. (afaik, Radeon first codename was Rage VI... but was changed to the R100 in some phase...)

Mach 64 was first windows accelerator with MPEG acceleration. They even had collection very high quality video clips on drvers cd at least til Rage II+ that I had. (3D Charger PCI 4MB)

also afaik, Mach8 chip was used on their VGA Wonder which was their mainstream offering on 386 decade. and if my memory serves me right, EGA Wonder had Mach4 chip.
 
First ATi card I had was a MACH64. !2!Mb BTW. :LOL:

I don't recall it having HW MPEG acceleration though, but it has been a while. :)
 
Thanks guys for all the input. Never did find a jpeg of the "Mach8".. Thanks seems ATI has been around longer then I had originally thought.
 
Ichneumon said:
Didn't know they made EGA cards... i guess that pre-dated the Mach8.
Click to expand...

I don't think so - according to the old XFree docs:

"VGAWonder series:
VGAWonder V3, VGAWonder V4, VGAWonder V5, VGAWonder+, VGAWonder XL, VGAWonder XL24, VGAWonder VLB, VGA Basic, VGA Basic 16, VGA Edge, VGA Edge 16, VGA Integra, VGA Charger, VGAStereo F/X, VGA 640, VGA 800, VGA 1024, VGA 1024D, VGA 1024 XL, VGA 1024 DXL, VGA 1024 VLB

Mach8 series:
Graphics Ultra, Graphics Vantage, VGAWonder GT (None of the 8514/Ultra and 8514 Vantage series is supported at this time)

Mach32 series:
Graphics Ultra+, Graphics Ultra Pro, Graphics Wonder, Graphics Ultra XLR, Graphics Ultra AXO, VLB mach32-D, PCI mach32-D, ISA mach32

Mach64 series:
Graphics Xpression, Graphics Pro Turbo, WinBoost, WinTurbo, Graphics Pro Turbo 1600, Video Xpression, 3D Xpression, Video Xpression+, 3D Xpression+, 3D Charger, Video Charger, WinCharger, All-In-Wonder, All-In-Wonder PRO, 3D Pro Turbo, XPERT@Play, XPERT@Play 98, XPERT@Work, XPERT 98, XPERT LCD, XPERT XL "

That should be different product. :)

EDIT: OOps, it was an old adapter list. Here is the controller list:

"VGAWonder series:
18800, 18800-1, 28800-2, 28800-4, 28800-5, 28800-6

Mach32 series:
68800-3, 68800-6, 68800AX, 68800LX

Mach64 series:
88800GX-C, 88800GX-D, 88800GX-E, 88800GX-F, 88800CX, 264CT, 264ET, 264VT, 264GT (3D Rage), 264VT-B, 264VT3, 264VT4, 264GT-B (3D Rage II), 3D Rage IIc, 3D Rage Pro, 3D Rage LT, 3D Rage LT Pro, 3D Rage XL, 3D Rage XC, 3D Rage Mobility (including the -M and -P variants)"
 
For chips since the Rage, ATI's press release archive can be pretty informative. They did have a Rage II before the Rage II+ DVD (often shortened to Rage II+). In typical ATI fasion, there wasn't any software to take advantage of the motion compensation support in the Rage II+.
 
This is the very first chip:

ati18800.jpg


The second one:

ATI%2028800-y_PN220028800-y.jpg


And the Mach8:

ati38800-y.jpg
 
T2k said:
This is the very first chip:

ati18800.jpg


The second one:

ATI%2028800-y_PN220028800-y.jpg


And the Mach8:

ati38800-y.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks for the pics. However an actual picture of the card itself is quite hard to find. In 1985 I was still in High school... that seems like such a long time ago now.
 
Thanks for the pics. Them cards look like real monsters.. ;) This has been an enlightening thread. Thanks again to all the contributers.

Edit: I removed the quote.. sorry about that.
 
Hi Sabastian..

You shouldnt quote a person in full when they post pics otherwise we get duplicates pics posted in the same thread. Don't want to tax beyond3d's server too much :)

edit: well the pics aren't stored on beyond3d's servers but it still looks a little silly... heh (my bad)
 
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