Texas Instruments Inc is hoping that its new TIGA-340 graphics interface specification will be accepted as an industry standard and claims backing from Microsoft Corp, Compaq Computer Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co. The TIGA Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture acts as a translator between Intel Corp microprocesors and the TMS340 family of signal processing graphics processors – the 34010 and 34020, and enables developers to write a single driver that will work with all boards using the Texas chips. Unlike IBM’s 8514/A and Adaptor Interface alternative, the Texas architecture is independent of resolution, depth of colour and pixel size, and adapts itself at run-time to the configuration of the graphics subsystem, according to Microbytes. It als includes a set of built-in graphics primitives, and is extensible via user-developed primitives written in C or assembler that can be downloaded during program initialisation. Currently offered as an applications programming interface for for MS-DOS, it will in future come in versions for Unix and OS/2 that will be used by systems developers to facilitate communications between high-level applications programming interfaces such as Presentation Manager and OSF/Motif that will isolate it from the hardware. Texas claims that TIGA 340 knocks over the IBM alternative, running the AutoCAD redraw operation 16 times faster when used with the older 34010 processor.
