Perhaps IBM’s most important contribution to the development of the personal computer was pushing graphics standards forward. Early microcomputers tended to output only text characters. And those machines that did implement some form of bitmap graphics, such as Steve Wozniak’s Apple II, did so without any eye towards establishing an industry-wide standard.

That changed with the introduction of the Intel 8088-based IBM Personal Computer in 1981. IBM developed two graphics cards–the Monochrome Display Adapter and the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA)–for use with its PC. The CGA card could output 16-color bitmap graphics with a resolution of 160-by-100 pixels, although in practice most programs used a higher-resolution 320-by-200 mode that only displayed 4 colors.

In early 1987, Apple planned to publish a database management program called Silver Surfer, which was developed by Acius. This prompted blowback from a number of third-party Macintosh developers, who felt that Apple should “stick to hardware” and leave the software to them. Unlike the Apple of today, then-CEO John Sculley’s company in 1987 could only go so far to antagonize the third-party developers necessary to keep the Macintosh platform viable. So Apple abandoned plans to publish Silver Surfer under its own label and returned the rights to Acius, who released the database under the name 4th Dimension.