Standardized graphics on the IBM Personal Computer

Although acknowledged to be an effective means of communicating information, graphics has not progressed more rapidly in the burgeoning use of personal computers due to the lack of standards for both writing and running graphics applications. A graphics standard—the Virtual Device Interface (VDI)—has been proposed for national use and is in the process of being adopted. An implementation of the VDI is currently available for the IBM Personal Computer. This paper briefly traces the history of graphics as used with personal computers, explores the difficulties that standardization efforts have met, explains the VDI model, and shows how this model operates in the IBM Personal Computer environment to make graphics a natural extension of the operating system.