INMOS G364 framebuffer

The G364 framebuffer was a line of graphics adapters using the SGS Thomson INMOS G364 colour video controller,[1] produced by INMOS (known for their transputer and eventually acquired by SGS Thomson and incorporated into STMicroelectronics) in the early 1990s. The G364 included a RAMDAC and a 64-bit interface to VRAM graphical memory to implement a framebuffer, but did not include any hardware-based graphical acceleration other than a hardware cursor function.

The G364 was largely similar in design and functionality to the G300 framebuffer, but had a 64-bit VRAM interface instead of the slower 32-bit interface of the lower-price G300.

The INMOS G364 is quite similar to the G332 found on the Personal DECstation and Dell PowerLine 450DE/2 DGX Graphics Workstation.[2]

Although the G364 was capable of providing comparatively high resolution output (up to 1600×1200 pixels at 8 bits-per-pixel, in many cases) typically achieved only in Unix workstations such as those of Sun Microsystems or SGI, it was not a popular chipset for the personal computer manufacturers of the early 1990s and was not adopted by any major workstation manufacturers.

The G364 framebuffer was used in an after-market Amiga graphics card, and as the primary graphics system sold with the MIPS Magnum 4000 series of MIPS-based Windows NT workstations.

Amiga cards based on the G364:

• EGS SPECTRUM 110/24
• Rainbow III
• Visiona Paint (G300)

The G332 found use in the State Machine G8 and Computer Concepts Colour Card for the Acorn Archimedes range of personal computers, these providing a secondary framebuffer to which the main display memory was copied periodically, also offering a broader 24-bit palette for all graphics modes including individually programmable colours for 256-colour modes. The capabilities of the G332 were reported as being "almost identical" to the ARM VIDC20 that was announced at the time these adapter cards became available.[3]