Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation announced an exclusive agreement with RasterOps Technology Corporation to market and sell Number Nine's award-winning Imagine 128 for Apple Power Mac line of graphics accelerators to the North and South American distribution market. Effective today, RasterOps Technology will begin marketing these products under its OptiColor 128(TM) brand. Number Nine will continue to offer and support its Imagine 128 for Power Mac product line to international customers and potential Macintosh and Macintosh-clone OEMs.

"RasterOps intends to be the premier provider of Macintosh graphics accelerators, monitors and color management solutions," said Barry Atkins, President of RasterOps Technology Corporation. "We believe this agreement forms a powerful partnership between Number Nine and RasterOps. RasterOps now offers the Macintosh market the very best in graphics and video performance."

The Imagine 128 for Power Mac has won numerous awards throughout the world, including a four diamond rating from MacWeek Magazine (April 1, 1996), a four stars rating from MacWorld Magazine (June, 1996), a four diamond rating from MacWeek Japan (April 15, 1996) and a Two Thumbs Up Award from New Media Magazine (June 24, 1996). In comparative reviews conducted worldwide of Macintosh PCI-based graphics accelerators, the Imagine 128 for Power Mac has consistently proven to be the faster overall card for the Mac. Now, Macintosh users familiar with RasterOps' name and reputation will be offered that same quality and performance under the RasterOps OptiColor 128 product name.

"We are very enthusiastic about this opportunity to work with one of the most respected names in the Macintosh market and anticipate that this agreement will benefit both parties," said John Thompson, President and COO of Number Nine. "We believe RasterOps provides exceptional expertise in the Macintosh graphics market and is capable of delivering the market penetration and high quality customer support necessary to promote Number Nine's 128-bit graphics technology in this market."

The OptiColor 128 and Imagine 128 for Power Mac are the only true 128-bit graphics accelerators on the market today, offering 128-bit capabilities in each of the three major sub-systems -- the Imagines 128-bit graphics engine, its internal processor data path, as well as a 128-bit data bus between the graphics processor and on-board graphics memory. Data is moved across the optimized 128-bit memory bus to high-speed VRAM at sustained drawing bandwidths in excess of 500 megabytes/second, enabling RasterOps OptiColor 128 to simultaneously process sixteen 8-bit, eight 16-bit or four 32-bit pixels in a single instruction. The extra-high bandwidth ensures that this speed remains nearly constant across all color modes, producing no noticeable performance loss when color depth is increased to 16-bits (65,000 colors), or even 32-bit (16.8 million) colors.

RasterOps will offer a 4-megabyte VRAM and an 8-megabyte VRAM version of the OptiColor 128 video accelerator. Products are expected to be available from RasterOps beginning in August, 1996. RasterOps will offer a five-year limited warranty on the OptiColor 128 product line while providing information and customer support at 888-8-RASTER.

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