HP 9845C: A Colorful Pioneer of 80s Computer Graphics
In 1981, the HP 9845C, the top-of-the-line model in the 9845 series, emerged as the first HP computer to support color, stunning the world with its powerful graphics capabilities. Featuring hardware-accelerated vector drawing and polygon fill, and supporting fast matrix operations for 3D model rendering, this machine initially designed for scientific and engineering use quickly became a multipurpose system, even contributing to the graphic scenes in the 1983 film "WarGames." Its demo program was remarkable, boasting over 4000 lines of code and showcasing cutting-edge concepts like 3D shading, ordered dithering, wireframe rendering, interactive light pen control, and color infographics at a high resolution of up to 4913 colors.