balls.gif
Click the polyhedron. Discover the lore.

balls.gif - A little piece of 1996

28 FRAMES · 108 × 108 · 134 KB

A file called balls.gif sat in the banner of NVIDIA's 1996 “NVelope Your Senses” games page: a tiny animated dodecahedron, spinning through 28 frames.

Hidden inside its GIF comment was a maker's signature:
GifBuilder 0.2 by Yves Piguet

GifBuilder was Macintosh freeware. That signature points to a wonderfully humble origin: an early NVIDIA website animation made on a Mac with a hobbyist tool.

The quiet joke? A file named balls.gif, on a site whose hero graphic was a wireframe hemisphere resolving into a smooth sphere, was actually a polyhedron. Flat faces - the very thing NV1's curved-surface architecture was designed to move beyond.

One little animation. A whole universe of lore.

Wayback Machine

For more information:

Kimberley Stowe
Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc
(408) 325-204
E-mail: kims@diamondmm.com

NVIDIA Corporation
(408) 720-7132
(408) 720-111 (fax)
E-mail: info@nvidia.com

Diamond Multimedia Endorses Multimedia Accelerator From NVIDIA Corporation

Sunnyvale, CA-- May 22, 1995-- Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: DIMD) today announced its endorsement of a new generation of Multimedia Accelerators from NVIDIA Corporation and SGS THOMSON Microelectronics.

The NV1 and STG2000 announced today are the first in a new generation of complete Multimedia Accelerators to deliver the power of real-time photorealistic 3D graphics, full-motion video with special effects, and concurrent wavetable audio for interactive multimedia, in a single chip. "The NV1 and STG2000 set new benchmarks for realism, totally immersing the consumer in the multimedia experience," said Ken Wirt, vice president of marketing for Diamond Multimedia Systems. "With the NV1 or STG2000, Diamond Multimedia can create powerful PC subsystems that not only enhance general multimedia PC functionality, but provide interactive consumer entertainment capabilities beyond 64-bit dedicated game consoles coming to market this fall."

NVIDIA's president and co-founder, Jen-Hsun Huang said: "NVIDIA's acceleration technology will enhance today's PC applications while enabling a new class of highly interactive multimedia titles. Leading software developers are actively producing titles that take advantage of this unique technology to deliver the next level of engaging and realistic multimedia. With NVIDIA's technology, a market leader like Diamond Multimedia can make products widely available that will transform today's PCs into premier multimedia machines."

Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. is a publicly held company that designs, manufactures and markets high-performance multimedia solutions including graphics and multimedia accelerators, sound cards, audio/telephony subsystems, and multimedia upgrade kits for the personal computer market. The company's products are sold through regional, national and international distributors as well as to major OEMs worldwide. Headquarters in San Jose, Calif., Diamond has marketing and technical support facilities in Tokyo, Munich and Sough (U.K). The company's stock is traded on the NASDAQ National Market System under the symbol DIMD.

NVIDIA is a privately-held firm developing architectures, software, and VLSI semiconductors that provide acceleration technology to transform the PC into the ultimate multimedia platform. NVIDIA is collaborating with SGS-THOMSON, the world's largest consumer electronics firm on joint development and production of the NV architecture.

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