Number Nine

Number Nine was a manufacturer of high-end graphics adapters for PC compatibles that was founded in the mid 1980s. In the early days they produced proprietary high resolution graphics boards for PC, XT and AT systems mainly for CAD and graphics intensive applications. In the early 90s when S3 came out with their first affordable Windows graphics accelerator, Number nine moved into the mid-range segment and became quite well known for their GXE series. They almost exclusively made use of graphics chips from S3 until the mid 90s when they attempted to design their own graphics cores (Imagine 128) in the same fashion as ATi. It was one of the first 128-bit (internally) graphics accelerators on the market. Imagine 128 was somewhat expensive and ultimately failed to gain acceptance in the marketplace. Not long after this venture Number 9 exited the graphics card business.