Life before the chips: simulating digital video interactive technology

Abstract

Advances in computers, such as DVI technology, are driven by new hardware functionality—more magic in the silicon. But before the chips came the ideas, and years of visual and interactive technical simulations to evaluate product designs and build the support necessary to develop them.

DVI—a digital multimedia technology

“…Initially this was a VAX connected to several very flexible Ikonas 3000 graphics display processors [3]. During the last year of pilot application development, we used a PC/AT connected to a frame buffer and videodisc player to approximate aspects of the DVI system.…”