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What is the full form of CGA?

Full form of CGA: Here, we are going to learn what does CGA stands for? CGA – which is an abbreviation of "Color Graphics Adapter" in Computer Acronyms/Abbreviations, etc.
Submitted by Anushree Goswami, on August 03, 2020

CGA: Color Graphics Adapter

CGA is an abbreviation of "Color Graphics Adapter" also known as "IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter". In 1981, it was launched by IBM, the first graphics card and also the first color display card provided by IBM. The color display card is basically for use in the personal computers of IBM, because of this motive, it also turned out to be the computer's original color computer display standard. As same as the working of CGA of IBM, many other companies’ video cards also worked in the same manner.

The IBM CGA card was facilitated with 16KB of video memory and it could be linked through RCA connector to an NTSC- attuned television set or composite video monitor. The card attributed a variety of graphics and text modes with its highest display resolution at 640x200 and 4-bit color depth, at the utmost limit of 16 colors.
Before 1990, there are a number of personal computers manufactured, comprised of a majority of the number of laptops also, which comes with integrated CGA-Compatible circuitry.

Standard Text Modes

The two text modes are provided by CGA:

• 40×25 characters:
  1. The utmost limit of this text mode is up to 16 colors.
  2. The design figure of each character is of 8×8 dots.
  3. In this text mode, the effective screen resolution is 320×200 pixels, while addressing of each single pixel could not be possible, autonomously. 
  4. Each pixel aspect ratio is of 1:1.2.
• 80×25 characters:
  1. The utmost limit of this text mode is up to 16 colors.
  2. The design figure of each character is of 8×8 dots.
  3. In this text mode, the effective screen resolution is 640×200 pixels. While again, addressing of each single pixel could not be possible, autonomously. 
  4. Each pixel aspect ratio is of 1:2.4.

Standard Graphics Mode

The graphics modes provided by CGA are in two resolutions:

• 320×200 pixels: The text mode of this resolution is of 40×25 characters.
• 640×200pixels: The text mode of this resolution is of 80×25 characters.

Reference: Color Graphics Adapter

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