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TMS34010
The TMS34010, developed by Texas Instruments and released in 1986, was the first programmable graphics processor integrated circuit. While specialized graphics hardware existed earlier, such as blitters, the TMS34010 chip is a microprocessor which includes graphics-oriented instructions, making it a combination of a CPU and what would later be called a GPU.
The chip was central to over twenty-five arcade video games from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, primarily from Atari Games and Midway Games. It was first used in Narc in 1988, then other games including Hard Drivin', Smash TV, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam. It was also part of computer workstation video accelerator boards in the 1990s. TI later released the TMS34020 with an emphasis on 3D rendering.
The design of the TMS34010 was led by Karl Guttag, who previously worked on the TMS9918 video display controller first used in the TI-99/4A. Development took place at TI facilities in Bedford (UK) and Houston (US). First silicon was working in Houston in December 1985, with shipment of development boards to IBM's workstation facility in Kingston, New York, in January 1986.
Midway Games was a prolific user of the chip in arcade video games beginning with the run and gun Narc in 1988. Subsequent Midway games built around the chip include Smash TV (1990), Mortal Kombat (1992), and NBA Jam (1993). The 3D driving simulator Hard Drivin' (1989) from Atari Games contains two of the processors. Atari Games used the chip in other flat-shaded 3D games: S.T.U.N. Runner (1989), Race Drivin' (1990), and Steel Talons (1991).
TI developed the Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture (TIGA) specification for professional-level video accelerator cards for IBM PC compatibles, of which the TMS34010 was central.
A follow-up processor, the TMS34020, was released in 1989. The chip can be paired with the TMS34082A floating point coprocessor to render three-dimensional graphics. It is used in Midway's 1994 Revolution X arcade game, even though the game is not fully 3D.
The TMS34010 is a bit addressable, 32-bit processor, with two register files, each with fifteen registers and sharing a sixteenth stack pointer. The instruction set supports drawing into two-dimensional bitmaps, arbitrary variable-width data, conversion of pixel data to different bit depths, and arithmetic operations on pixels. Positions in bitmaps can be specified either as X, Y coordinates or as addresses. The PIXBLT instruction handles drawing pixels, including Boolean and other operations for combining pixel data, and most of the microcode for graphics functions is to support it.
The TMS34010 can execute general purpose programs and is supported by an ANSI C compiler. Most of the arcade video games that use the processor were written in native assembly language, not C.
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TMS34010
The TMS34010, developed by Texas Instruments and released in 1986, was the first programmable graphics processor integrated circuit. While specialized graphics hardware existed earlier, such as blitters, the TMS34010 chip is a microprocessor which includes graphics-oriented instructions, making it a combination of a CPU and what would later be called a GPU.
The chip was central to over twenty-five arcade video games from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, primarily from Atari Games and Midway Games. It was first used in Narc in 1988, then other games including Hard Drivin', Smash TV, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam. It was also part of computer workstation video accelerator boards in the 1990s. TI later released the TMS34020 with an emphasis on 3D rendering.
The design of the TMS34010 was led by Karl Guttag, who previously worked on the TMS9918 video display controller first used in the TI-99/4A. Development took place at TI facilities in Bedford (UK) and Houston (US). First silicon was working in Houston in December 1985, with shipment of development boards to IBM's workstation facility in Kingston, New York, in January 1986.
Midway Games was a prolific user of the chip in arcade video games beginning with the run and gun Narc in 1988. Subsequent Midway games built around the chip include Smash TV (1990), Mortal Kombat (1992), and NBA Jam (1993). The 3D driving simulator Hard Drivin' (1989) from Atari Games contains two of the processors. Atari Games used the chip in other flat-shaded 3D games: S.T.U.N. Runner (1989), Race Drivin' (1990), and Steel Talons (1991).
TI developed the Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture (TIGA) specification for professional-level video accelerator cards for IBM PC compatibles, of which the TMS34010 was central.
A follow-up processor, the TMS34020, was released in 1989. The chip can be paired with the TMS34082A floating point coprocessor to render three-dimensional graphics. It is used in Midway's 1994 Revolution X arcade game, even though the game is not fully 3D.
The TMS34010 is a bit addressable, 32-bit processor, with two register files, each with fifteen registers and sharing a sixteenth stack pointer. The instruction set supports drawing into two-dimensional bitmaps, arbitrary variable-width data, conversion of pixel data to different bit depths, and arithmetic operations on pixels. Positions in bitmaps can be specified either as X, Y coordinates or as addresses. The PIXBLT instruction handles drawing pixels, including Boolean and other operations for combining pixel data, and most of the microcode for graphics functions is to support it.
The TMS34010 can execute general purpose programs and is supported by an ANSI C compiler. Most of the arcade video games that use the processor were written in native assembly language, not C.
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