Number Nine Visual Technology

Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation

Company type	Private
Industry	Computer hardware, Graphics cards
Founded	1982
Founder	Andrew Najda, Stan Bialek
Defunct	1999
Fate	Assets and intellectual property acquired by S3 Inc.
Headquarters	Lexington, Massachusetts , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Products	Video graphics processors and cards (Imagine series, Revolution series, Pepper series, Ticket to Ride series)

Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation operated as a producer of video graphics processors and cards from 1982 until 1999. The company pioneered the first 128-bit graphics processor known as the Imagine 128, along with introducing the earliest 256-color (8-bit) and 16.8 million color (24-bit) graphics cards.

Both the corporation and many of its products—such as Revolution, Imagine, Pepper, and Ticket to Ride—derived their names from Beatles songs. During system startup, the video BIOS splash screens of Number Nine cards showcased Beatles song lyrics corresponding to the card models, typically preceded by a "#9" identifier.

History

Established in 1982 by Andrew Najda and Stan Bialek under the name Number Nine Computer Corporation, the firm was rebranded as Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation in the early 1990s. Headquartered mainly in Lexington, Massachusetts, its initial product was an Apple II accelerator board before pivoting in 1983 toward developing high-performance PC graphics cards. Number Nine maintained a strong presence in the premium graphics card market through the early 1990s but gradually lost market share during the mid to late 1990s due to a delayed shift toward emerging 3D graphics technologies, instead focusing on delivering superior and rapid 2D graphics.

On December 20, 1999, Number Nine issued a letter of intent indicating that S3 Inc. (which later became S3 Graphics Co.) intended to acquire nearly all of its assets and intellectual property. The acquisition was finalized by mid-2000, leading to the cessation of Number Nine’s operations. Subsequently, in 2002, former engineers James Macleod and Francis Bruno launched Silicon Spectrum, Inc., securing a license from S3 to utilize Number Nine’s graphics technology for FPGA-based implementations.

Following the company's closure, a former employee continued managing Number Nine’s website—including driver downloads and community forums—until March 2005, when control of the domain passed to an unrelated entity.

In 2013, Francis Bruno attempted to fund an open-source GPU inspired by the #9 Ticket To Ride IV design through Kickstarter but only raised $13,000 against a $200,000 target. Nonetheless, in August 2014, the source code was released under a GPL3 license.

Products

Number Nine’s earliest graphics cards were ISA bus models predating VGA standards and lacked graphics acceleration hardware. Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced graphics cards for ISA and MCA buses utilizing Texas Instruments’ TIGA coprocessors.

During the 1990s, Number Nine introduced AGP and PCI graphics cards built around their proprietary Imagine GPU series. Concurrently, they marketed AGP, PCI, VLB, and ISA cards equipped with S3 Graphics accelerators. Their final AGP offering incorporated an Nvidia GPU.

Early pre-VGA video cards

Initial cards produced before 1986 lacked co-processors and predated VGA standards:

Model	Resolution	Color Depth	Bus Type	Remarks
Number Nine Graphics System	CGA	CGA	ISA
Revolution 512x8	512×480	256 colors selected from 16.7 million	ISA	utilizes NEC μPD7220
Revolution 512x32	512×480	True color (24-bit)	ISA	utilizes NEC μPD7220
Revolution 1024x8	1024×768 (adjusted from 1024×1024)	256 colors selected from 16.7 million	ISA
Revolution 2048x4	1280×960 (adjusted from 2048×1024)	16 colors selected from a palette of 4096	ISA	Hitachi HD63484 Advanced CRT Controller

At launch, Revolution series cards were full-length designs with prices ranging between $1,995 and $3,995.

TIGA Graphics Cards

From 1986 through 1992, Number Nine developed graphics cards featuring Texas Instruments' TIGA co-processors combined with proprietary chips responsible for fundamental graphics tasks such as clipping. With the exception of the GXi Lite, these were predominantly large, full-length expansion cards.

Models utilizing TIGA technology included:

#9 Model	TIGA Co-processor	Memory	PC Bus Architecture
Pepper	TMS-34010	??	ISA
Pepper SGT	TMS-34010 + Intel 82786	1–4 MB?	ISA
Pepper Pro 1024	TMS-34010	1.5–2 MB	MCA, ISA
Pepper Pro 1280	TMS-34010	??	MCA?, ISA
Pepper Pro 1600	TMS-34010	??	MCA?, ISA
GX	TMS-34010?	~1 MB DRAM + 2 MB VRAM?	MCA?, ISA
GXi Lite	TMS-34020	1 MB DRAM + 1 MB VRAM	MCA?, ISA
GXi	TMS-34020	1 MB DRAM + 2 MB VRAM	MCA?, ISA
GXiTC	TMS-34020	~1 MB DRAM + 4 MB VRAM	MCA?, ISA

At launch, these high-performance TIGA cards carried price tags ranging from $995 up to $2,495.

Number Nine Video Cards Featuring Number Nine GPUs

The Imagine line represented Number Nine’s in-house GPU designs, advancing over four distinct generations:

1. Imagine 128 (codenamed "Blackbird")
2. Imagine 128-II ("Silver Hammer")
3. T2R ("Ticket to Ride" or "Imagine-3")
4. T2R4 ("Ticket to Ride IV")

The initial Imagine 128 brought a fully 128-bit graphics processor architecture with matching internal processing and memory buses; however, its support for 3D acceleration was quite limited.

With the Imagine 128-II, enhancements included Gouraud shading, a 32-bit Z-buffer, double buffering for displays, and a robust 256-bit video rendering engine.

The Ticket to Ride (Imagine-3) generation introduced support for WRAM memory, compatibility with AGP and PCI buses, a dedicated floating-point setup engine for 3D calculations, bilinear filtering, perspective correction, Gouraud shading, alpha blending, interpolated fog effects, specular lighting, multiple buffering schemes, various Z-buffer precision options, hardware MPEG-1/2 decoding capabilities, and built-in MIP mapping.

Ticket to Ride IV further advanced the technology by incorporating a 250 MHz RAMDAC, up to 32 MiB of SDRAM capacity, full-scene anti-aliasing, per-pixel fogging/specular/alpha effects, ten levels of MIP mapping detail with bilinear and trilinear filtering methods, an on-chip texture cache of 8 KB size, hardware MPEG-1/2 decoding support, and a complete IEEE 754 floating-point pipeline optimized for 3D rendering.

Number Nine’s flagship video cards that integrated these GPUs are listed below:

Model	GPU	Memory	Bus Architecture
Imagine 128	Imagine 128	4 MB or 8 MB VRAM	PCI
Imagine 128 Series 2	Imagine 128-II	4 MB or 8M H-VRAM	PCI
Imagine 128 Series 2e	Imagine 128-II	4 MB EDO DRAM	PCI
Revolution 3D	T2R	Base options of 4 MB or 8 MB WRAM; also available in 12 MB and 16 MB configurations	PCI, AGP
Revolution IV	T2R4	Available with either 16 MB or 32 MB SDRAM	PCI, AGP
Revolution IV-FP	T2R4	Equipped with 32 MB SDRAM	PCI, AGP

Released between the years of 1994 and 1998, these top-tier graphics cards were among Number Nine’s premium products. It is noteworthy that the Imagine 128 and Series 2 models commanded high prices yet did not require additional cooling solutions such as GPU heatsinks.

The Revolution IV-FP (also referred to as Revolution IV-1600SW) was equipped with an OpenLDI digital interface designed specifically for the Silicon Graphics (SGI) 1600SW digital flat panel display—a rare standardized adapter enabling compatibility with this proprietary monitor. While SGI incorporated their own video adapters within their workstations, third-party PCI cards like the Revolution IV-FP allowed other systems to interface with the SGI flat panel.

OpenLDI was an early digital video standard that lacked compatibility with current DVI-D interfaces. Although OpenLDI eventually became obsolete, adapters were developed to convert OpenLDI signals into DVI-D format to enable broader usage.

Due to sustained demand for the advanced SGI 1600SW display even after production ceased, graphics cards such as the Revolution IV-FP have maintained high resale values well beyond their discontinuation.

Number Nine Graphics Cards Utilizing S3 Graphics Chipsets

Throughout the 1990s, Number Nine sustained a close collaboration with S3 Graphics. In addition to their premium Imagine lineup, they offered more budget-friendly video cards powered by S3 GPUs, commonly launched in sets of three to address various price segments beneath the Imagine series. Although these S3-based models often carried similar names, they varied in specific model numbers and GPU variants. Apart from the SR9—which was Number Nine’s final and most sophisticated S3-based card—none of these cards included heatsinks on their graphics processors.

Key S3-based video card models consisted of:

#9 Model	S3 GPU	Memory	PC Bus Architecture	Remarks
GXE	928	1 MB–4 MB VRAM	ISA, VLB, PCI
GXE 64	864 (Vision864)	1 MB, 2 MB DRAM	ISA?, VLB, PCI
GXE 64 Pro	964 (Vision964)	2 MB, 4 MB VRAM	ISA?, VLB, PCI
GXE 64 Trio	764 (Trio64)	1 MB, 2 MB DRAM	ISA?, VLB, PCI
Vision 330	764 (Trio64)	1 MB, 2 MB DRAM	VLB, PCI
Motion 331	765 (Trio64V+)	1 MB, 2 MB DRAM	VLB, PCI
Motion 531	868 (Vision868)	1 MB, 2 MB DRAM	VLB, PCI
Motion 771	968 (Vision968)	2 MB, 4 MB VRAM	VLB, PCI
Reality 332	325 (ViRGE)	2 MB EDO DRAM	PCI
Reality 772	988 (ViRGE VX)	2 MB, 4 MB VRAM	PCI
Reality 334	357 (ViRGE GX2)	4 MB SGRAM	PCI, AGP
SR9 (SDRAM)	394 (Savage4 LT)	8 MB SDRAM	AGP	(small heatsink; some OEM)
SR9 (SDRAM)	397 (Savage4 Pro)	16 MB, 32 MB SDRAM	AGP	(retail)
SR9 (SGRAM)	398 (Savage4 Xtreme)	8–16 MB SGRAM	AGP	(OEM only?)

Number Nine Graphics Cards Equipped with Heatsinks

The last two graphics cards released by Number Nine were the sole models that required heatsinks on their GPUs and delivered superior performance compared to the Revolution IV.

• The SR9 represented the final retail product incorporating an S3 Savage4 GPU paired with a modest heatsink—offered in SDRAM variants featuring VGA connectors (Savage4 LT) and SGRAM versions equipped with DVI connectors (Savage4 Xtreme).
• Additionally, an OEM-exclusive AGP card utilized an Nvidia TNT2-M64 GPU paired with either 16 or 32 MB of SDRAM and a larger heatsink. Commonly referred to unofficially as "M64" or "Pepper M32," this particular model was never made available through retail channels.

PixelFusion Partnership

In April of 1999, Number Nine Visual Technology secured $15 million in funding from Bankboston Business Credit.

By August that year, Number Nine entered into a collaboration with PixelFusion Ltd. aimed at creating a high-performance AGP Pro graphics accelerator based on PixelFusion’s FUZION 150 chipset. The intended product was designed to support Rambus RDRAM capacities ranging between 128MB and up to 1GB and featured integrated DRAM within the GPU itself. Despite announcements targeting a launch in the first half of the year 2000, no commercial products emerged from this joint venture.

See also

• List of defunct graphics chips and card companies