This is a timeline of dedicated 3D computer graphics hardware that uses something other than the main CPU of a computer to draw graphics in three dimensions, usually on a two-dimensional standard display, although sometimes on a three-dimensional display like VR goggles. This is a form of hardware acceleration. In other words, the basic feature is that 3D graphics hardware handles the 3D projection - but possibly for output on a regular display. This is related to the modern term graphics processing unit (GPU) where all the hallmark features of modern 3D hardware appear on a single chip. The list stops with the release of mainstream 3D graphics cards and the Sony PlayStation and its Toshiba-designed GPU in 1994. Less notable examples are omitted. Much of this information is not readily collected and available so there were probably many more instances than listed. "Matrix multiplier", "vector processor", "tensor processor", "3D accelerator", "Geometry Engine", and "geometry pipeline" all have related meanings.
Timeline
1960s
1963 MIT's TX-2 computer used to showcase primitive wireframe 3D and hidden line capability with Sketchpad III by Ivan Sutherland. RMS Associates, later Information Displays Inc., introduces the Computer Controlled Display. Light pen offered as a peripheral.
1966 Information Displays Inc. introduces the IDI IDIIOM (Information Displays, Inc. Input-Output Machine). Gordon Romney of the University of Utah uses the terminal to produce the first shaded 3D renders that fall.
1967 Adage graphics terminals such as the AGT/30 with dedicated analog matrix multipliers
1968 Ivan Sutherland's Sword of Damocles augmented reality headset, driven by the rather outdated DEC PDP-1, becomes functional at Harvard. Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation, the first company focused exclusively on computer graphics products, is founded by David Evans and Ivan Sutherland in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1969
Evans & Sutherland (E&S) Line Drawing System-1 (LDS-1) introduced. First all-digital system to provide matrix multiplication and 3D capability, therefore could be considered the first "graphics processing unit" on the commercial market. First LDS-1 unit delivered to Bolt, Beranek & Newman in August 1969, another goes to NASA Ames, and a third to Princeton. Low-cost graphics terminal IMLAC PDS-1 introduced at the November 1969 Fall Joint Computer Conference. Later saw use as an early 3D gaming machine with the likes of Maze War.
1970s
1970 On New Year's Day, January 1, 1970, the first complete test of a successor head-mounted AR/VR system to Sutherland's Sword of Damocles, termed The Sorcerer's Apprentice, becomes fully operational at the University of Utah. According to contemporary accounts, this timing was due to the availability of time-sharing resources on the driving computer, not being utilized by the other students who were out partying. This system surpassed the 1968 Sword of Damocles by adding the ability to interact with scenes via the "Lincoln Wand," developed by Larry Roberts at MIT's Lincoln Laboratories in 1963, which enabled virtual object manipulation with a 3D pointer controlled by the wand.
1971 Evans & Sutherland introduces a successor product to the LDS-1, the Line Drawing System 2, or LDS-2. The first unit goes to Case Western Reserve University in 1972 (see below), and another goes to NASA Ames, making the latter the only facility with both an E&S LDS-1 and LDS-2. Aaron Marcus begins development on Cybernetic Landscapes (see below). A short silent color film showing movement through a virtual 3D campus, termed Cornell in Perspective, is made at Cornell University using the custom-built polygon rendering hardware developed at General Electric's Electronic Laboratory in Syracuse, NY.
1972 PLATO IV system becomes operational at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Between around 1973 and 1978, several networked multiplayer wireframe 3D games are implemented and popularized by users of the system, such as Spasim. E&S Continuous Tone 1 (CT1) "Watkins box" system (consisting of an E&S LDS-2 and Shaded Picture System) delivered to Case Western Reserve University. First real-time Gouraud shading machine. In 1975, an Gouraud-shaded 3D animation of a sphere eversion was created at CWRU, and is available to view here.
1973 E&S Picture System 1 (along with optional Shaded Picture System) offered in August issue of Datamation. Aaron Marcus completes implementation of Cybernetic Landscapes, an artwork consisting of a series of three interactive 3D environments, using the E&S LDS-1 at Princeton.
1974 A practical shaded 3D graphics algorithm implemented in software on low-cost, general purpose computers becomes operational at John Staudhammer's Graphics Lab at North Carolina State University.
1975 A joint effort between Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation and the University of Utah's computer graphics department results in the first ever MOSFET video framebuffer, capable of color and smooth shading.
1977 E&S Continuous Tone 4 (CT4) system delivered to Lufthansa for pilot training using computer simulation. First graphics system capable of real-time texture mapping. Apart from the CT4 and CT1 at Case Western, a CT2 went to the Computer-Aided Operations Research Facility (CAORF) at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1975 for harbor simulation, and a CT3 was purchased by NASA in 1976.
1979 Vectorbeam releases the first video game with true 3D graphics available to consumers, the vector-based Speed Freak. Vectorbeam’s founder, Larry Rosenthal, was an MIT graduate and had patented the custom vector display hardware used in their games. Ikonas graphics systems with 8- and 24-bit graphics and 3D acceleration I, Robot is conceptualized as Ice World at Atari. It is originally planned to be a shaded 3D driving simulator, and include stopping at rest stations to play minigames in the format of virtual arcade machines.
1980s
1981 Pixel Planes experimental design with very large scale (VLSI) application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)
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