Online Computer Terms Dictionary - G

graphics accelerator

<graphics, hardware> Hardware (often an extra circuit board) to perform tasks such as plotting lines and surfaces in two or three dimensions, filling, shading and hidden line removal.

(1997-07-14)

graphics adapter

graphics adaptor

graphics adaptor

<hardware, graphics> (Or "graphics adapter", "graphics card", "video adaptor", etc.) A circuit board fitted to a computer, especially an IBM PC, containing the necessary video memory and other electronics to provide a bitmap display.

Adaptors vary in the resolution (number of pixels) and number of colours they can display, and in the refresh rate they support. These parameters are also limited by the monitor to which the adaptor is connected. A number of such display standards, e.g. SVGA, have become common and different software requires or supports different sets.

(1996-09-16)

graphics card

graphics adaptor

Graphics Interchange Format

<graphics, file format> /gif/, occasionally /jif/ (GIF, GIF 89A) A standard for digitised images compressed with the LZW algorithm, defined in 1987 by CompuServe (CIS).

Graphics Interchange Format and GIF are service marks of CompuServe Incorporated. This only affects use of GIF within Compuserve, and pass-through licensing for software to access them, it doesn't affect anyone else's use of GIF. It followed from a 1994 legal action by Unisys against CIS for violating Unisys's LZW software patent. The CompuServe Vice President has stated that "CompuServe is committed to keeping the GIF 89A specification as an open, fully-supported, non-proprietary specification for the entire on-line community including the World-Wide Web".

Filename extension: .gif.

File format.

GIF89a specification.

See also progressive coding, animated GIF.

(2000-09-12)

Graphics Interface Format

<spelling> You mean "Graphics Interchange Format".

(1999-10-11)

Graphics Language Object System

<graphics, language> (GLOS) A language with statements for describing graphics objects (line, circle, polygon, etc.), written by Michael J McLean and Brian Hicks at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia in 1978. New objects are defined using procedures. 2-D transformations are context dependent and may be nested.

[M.J. McLean, "The Semantics of Computer Drafting Languages", PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 1978].

[Hicks, B.W., and McLean, M.J. "A Graphic Language for Describing Line Objects", Proceedings of the DECUS-Australia August 1973 Symposium, Melbourne, 1973].

(2002-06-01)