VGA and MCGA were two new video standards introduced in April 1987 with the IBM PS/2 line. They were meant to make the new IBM computers more competitive with Amiga, Atari ST, and color Macintosh computers, all of which had ability to create high resolution graphics with more colors then IBM’s first generation of PCs. MCGA vs VGA confused people in 1987, and it can confuse people today.
Of the two standards, VGA proved the most enduring. The GPU in your desktop or laptop PC is fully backward compatible with VGA, and whatever graphics mode you’re using right now is an extension of VGA. The 15-pin VGA plug is still very common 35 years after the PS/2’s introduction. VGA approved to be the most enduring element of the PS/2 line.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
