by , 8:00 AM EDT, May 8th, 2002
Apple Computer Inc. was recently granted a United States Patent for a "Hardware graphics accelerator having access to multiple types of memory including cached memory." The patent, which was filed May 1, 1995 and granted April 16, 2002, goes into great detail about the device but also gives a general insight into the possible application. From the USPTO Web site:
The present invention, generally speaking, provides a hardware graphics accelerator for use in a computer system having a data processor, a system bus, and a memory subsystem including both main memory and video memory. The hard-ware graphics accelerator includes a datapath controller connected to the system bus and to the memory subsystem for receiving data from the memory subsystem, performing an operation upon the data, and returning the data to the memory subsystem; and a memory controller connected to the system bus, to the datapath controller, and to the memory subsystem for controlling the memory subsystem such that at one time the datapath controller receives the data from the main memory and at another time the datapath controller receives the data from the video memory. In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, the hardware graphics accelerator includes circuitry for maintaining cache coherency when the system includes either a level-one cache only or both a level-one and a level-two cache.
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Hardware graphics accelerators are well-known and are widely-available for computers running the Windows operating system. Accelerator boards are also available for computers running under the Macintosh operating system. Such boards, although they may off-load certain task [sic], possibly including graphics tasks, from the motherboard CPU, nevertheless execute those tasks in software. There has not been available a hardware graphics accelerator for computers running under the Macintosh operating system, i.e., a QuickDraw graphics accelerator.
The Mac Observer will be looking into the patent to determine if it could be connected to recent announcements from Apple Computer. Note that as of press time, the Patent Office's Web site was very slow. If you want to look up that patent yourself, be patient. If you run into difficulties following our link, you can visit the Office's search page, and search for patent 6373493.
This patent was clearly filed specifically for Apple to use in developing QuickDraw video boards. QuickDraw was Apple's proprietary imaging technology for print and display, and it later included 3D technology in the form of QuickDraw 3D. QuickDraw was an amazing technology for its day (techheads, please feel free to argue the merits, or lack of merits, of QuickDraw in the comments below), but it suffered greatly from Apple's niche status in the computer market. There was little software, few games, and less hardware that embraced or supported QuickDraw, and Apple eventually dumped the technology in favor of industry standards. Five years later, the patent was granted.
This doesn't mean that there aren't also other uses for the technology involved with this patent, however. It would be exciting if Apple has something up its sleeve, as recent rumors have suggested.