Hercules Graphics Card

The Hurcules Graphics Card (HGC) was developed by Van Suwannukul, founder of Hercules Computer Technology, in 1982. HGC was a computer graphics controller that became a widely popular standard. It offered both MDA-compatible text mode and monochrome graphics mode, and could address individual pixels and produce large black and white images. It served as competion for IBM's CGA standard. It's popularity was driven by the use of CGA emulation techniques that could allow users of the HGA technology to run programs written for the CGA standard. Combine this with competitive pricing and HGC was strong competition for CGA.

Since HGC didn't support color technology, CGA programs run by use of emulation were in black and white. Programming for the HGC standard was affected by the lack of BIOS support and standardization from IBM. Nevertheless, HGC was still popular for many reasons. Popular IBM PC programs such as AutoCAD came with drivers to support HGC, and it enjoyed a long life in use because it could be used to connect a secondary monitor.

In monochrome text mode, characters were rendered in 9x14 boxes (MDA-compatible).

Hercules also produced the Hercules Color Card (HCC) to compete directly with the CGA standard. Basically it was HGC with color support. The standard was also built upon by the Hercules Graphics Card Plus in 1986 and the Hercules InColor Card in 1987.

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