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Number Nine was founded in 1982 by Andrew Najda and Stan Bialek as Number Nine Computer Corporation. The company was renamed Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation in the early 1990s. For most of its existence, Number Nine was based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Number Nine initially made an [[Apple II accelerators|Apple II accelerator]] board, then later moved into the design and manufacture of high-end PC graphics cards in 1983. Number Nine was one of the premier, higher-end graphics card companies into the early 1990s. In the mid to late 1990s, Number Nine began to lose market share to competitors in both the price and performance arenas. Number Nine was slow to respond to the boom in 3D graphics, continuing to emphasize high quality, fast 2D graphics.{{Citation needed|date=May 2013}} On December 20, 1999, Number Nine announced a "letter-of-intent" for [[S3 Graphics|S3 Inc. (later S3 Graphics Co.)]] to buy substantially all assets and intellectual property of Number Nine. By mid 2000, S3 had completed the acquisition of Number Nine's assets and Number Nine had ceased operations. In 2002 two former Number Nine engineers, James Macleod and Francis Bruno, formed [[Silicon Spectrum]], Inc., and licensed Number Nine's graphics technology from S3 to implement in [[Field-programmable gate array|FPGA]] devices.<ref>{{cite web|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/19990117083724/http://www.nine.com/about.html|archivedate=1999-01-17 |url=http://www.nine.com/about.html | title=Number Nine Visual Technology Company History | publisher=Number Nine Visual Technology | year=1999|accessdate=2013-10-15}}</ref><ref>{{ cite web|url=http://computer.yourdictionary.com/number-nine | title=Number Nine - Computer Dictionary Definition | accessdate=Jan 8, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/keyDevelopments?symbol=IPMG.PK | title=Number Nine Visual Technology, Inc. Announces Merger Agreement | publisher=Reuters | date=1999-12-20 | accessdate=2011-01-08}}</ref><ref>{{ cite web|url=http://www.siliconspectrum.com/overview.htm |title=Silicon Spectrum, Inc. - Overview |accessdate=2011-01-08}}</ref>
For five years after Number Nine closed its doors, a former employee kept Number Nine's website up and running, with driver downloads and a forum available for self-help. A volunteer and #9 enthusiast provided regular, impromptu technical support on the forum for the last two and a half years the site was active. Several former employees checked in to help occasionally. The website finally went off the air for good in March 2005 and the ___domain name was taken over by an online gambling company.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}
In 2013, Francis Bruno from Silicon Spectrum tried to fund an [[open-source license|open-source]] GPU based on a ''#9 Ticket To Ride IV'' derived design. Started on the [[crowdfunding]] platform [[kickstarter.com]], the campaign was unsuccessful as only $13,000 of the requested $200,000 was gathered.<ref>[http://www.tomshardware.de/gpu-open-source,news-249776.html Eine Open-Source-GPU bei Kickstarter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131118122926/http://www.tomshardware.de/gpu-open-source,news-249776.html |date=2013-11-18}} on tomshardware.de (Oktober 15, 2013)</ref><ref>[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/725991125/open-source-graphics-processor-gpu Open Source Graphics Processor (GPU)] on [[kickstarter.com]] by Francis Bruno</ref> Despite this, source code was released under a GPL3 license in August 2014.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://github.com/asicguy/gplgpu |title=GPL v3 2D/3D graphics engine in verilog |website=[[GitHub]] |accessdate=2016-07-26}}</ref>
== Products ==
{{Technical|date=May 2024}}
The first Number Nine graphics cards were [[Industry Standard Architecture|ISA]] bus, pre-VGA standard cards that had no graphics accelerator chips. In the latter 1980s to early 1990s, Number Nine made ISA and [[Micro Channel architecture|MCA]] bus graphics cards based on Texas Instruments' [[Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture|TIGA]] coprocessors.
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| Number Nine Graphics System || [[Color Graphics Adapter|CGA]] || CGA || ISA ||
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| Revolution 512x8 || 512×480 || 256 colors selectable from a palette of 16.7 million || ISA || uses [[NEC
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| Revolution 512x32 || 512×480 || 24bit || ISA || uses NEC
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| Revolution 1024x8 || 1024×768 from 1024×1024 || 256 colors selectable from a palette of 16.7 million || ISA ||
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| Revolution 2048x4<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Machover |first1=Carl |last2=Dill |first2=John |year=1985 |title=New products |journal=IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications |volume=5 |issue=10 |pages=71 |doi=10.1109/MCG.1985.276240}}</ref> || 1280×960 from 2048×1024 || 16 colors selectable from a palette of 4096 || ISA || Hitachi HD63484 Advanced CRT Controller
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The Revolution series were large, full-length cards that ranged in price from $
=== TIGA cards ===
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| Pepper Pro 1024<ref>{{ cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qDAEAAAAMBAJ&dq=number+nine+computer+corporation+pepper&pg=PT25 | title=Number Nine Announces Series of Graphics Cards | date=20 Nov 1989 | accessdate=Jan 13, 2011}}</ref> || TMS-34010 || 1.5M, 2M || [[Micro Channel architecture|MCA]], ISA
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| Pepper Pro 1280<ref>{{Cite web |title=Famous Graphics Chips: Number
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| Pepper Pro 1600 || TMS-34010 || ?? || MCA?, ISA
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== External links ==
* {{web archive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990117083724/http://www.nine.com|title=Official website}}
{{Commons category}}
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