Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible, Sixth Edition

Display Adapters

The hardware that changes your pulsing digital computer's thoughts into the signals that can be displayed by a monitor is called the display adapter. Over the years, the display adapter has itself adapted to the demands of computer users, gaining color and graphics capabilities as well as increasing its resolution and range of hues. In most machines, the display adapter is a special expansion board that serves primarily to make graphic images; hence, the display adapter is often called a graphics board. Because the graphics board sends out signals in a form that resembles (but is not identical to) that of your home video system, it is often termed a video board. Notebook computers lack video boards—they typically lack any conventional ...