The first graphic card, introduced in August of 1981 by IBM, was Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA). The monitors that used these cards were typically text-only with green, amber or white text on a black background.

Color for IBM-compatible computers appeared on the scene with the 4-color Hercules Graphics Card (HGC), followed by the 8-color Color Graphics Card (CGA) and 16-color Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA).

When IBM introduced the Video Graphics Array (VGA) in 1987, a new graphics standard came into being. A VGA display could support up to 256 colors (out of a possible 2,62,144 colors) at resolutions up to 720x400. Perhaps the most interesting difference between VGA and the preceding formats is the VGA was analog, whereas displays had been digital up to that point. Why were displays moved from digital to analog when most other electronic systems like compact disk player, newer VCRs and camcorders use digital picture storage? The answer is color. A digital display generates different colors by using the red, green and blue electron beams. In addition an intensity signal is used to display each color at one of the two intensity levels. This gives rise to a capability to generate 16 colors (24).

I will write more on this soon

It is almost unbelievable how we have advanced from a black screen with text on it, to amazing graphics that are almost realistic. Screen resolutions around 2048 x 1536 seem to be standard on some of the newer graphics cards. My computer is pretty old, and its minimum resolution is still higher than 720 x 400. I'm not completely sure, but I think it is 800 x 640.

I'm especially amazed with the new CrossFire technology that was developed, more commonly among PCI Express graphics cards. This is where two cards actually work together on one monitor. The two cards can either connect together inside the computer with a small chip (as long as the cards sit right next to each other) or connect together using a "Y" adapter from the outside. With this technology, one card processes one half of the screen, and the second does the other. You can even set the cards to "tile" the screen. Imagine a checker board; the black spaces are processed by one card, and the white spots the other.

It is simply amazing.

Normally the resolution of your monitor is based on the form factor like in T.V. sets.
The most common for tor is 4:3 the wide screens are mostly 16:9.

So the old resolutions of VGA (640x480) , SVGA (800x600) , ... are changed on wide screens.
Otherwise your image is not in the correct format.
These problems are also getting there with Digital photo's, since the factor is not the same as the classical ones.

See we've been using the same kinf of format though for a long time now, VGA. Like many other things in the computer industry the technology we've been using is new but the technology itself is very outdated.

I mean we've been using the same setup for windows since 1995 and it's 2006 now. We've gotten better in the Motherboard side because we move from ISA slots to PCI-Express slots, but it still all just slots on a motherboard. Computer Design hasn't changed at all it's just gotten more complex because all we've been doing is upgrading the old instead making something new. That's when I hope to be around when we come up with a new type of visual device for computers.

i have a 3d accelerator card in this dell, and a voodoo card in my other computer. They both work pretty good too.