The Plantronics Colorplus was a graphics card

Video card

A video card, Graphics Card, or Graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates output images to a display. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors...

 for IBM PC computers, first sold in 1982. It was a superset of the then-current CGA standard, using the same monitor standard and providing the same pixel resolutions.

The Colorplus had twice the memory of the CGA (32k, compared to 16k). The additional memory could be used in graphics modes to double the color depth

Color depth

In computer graphics, color depth or bit depth is the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. This concept is also known as bits per pixel , particularly when specified along with the number of bits used...

, giving two additional graphics modes - 16 colors at 320x200 resolution, or 4 colors at 640x200 resolution. Few programs made use of these modes, for which there was no BIOS support.

Some third-party CGA and EGA clones, such as the ATI

ATI Technologies

ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...

 Graphics Solution and the Paradise

Western Digital

Western Digital Corporation is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. It has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B...

 EGA, could emulate the extra modes (usually describing them simply as 'Plantronics mode').

External links

• "+COLORPLUS Shatters The Mold.", an original advertisement.
• A USENET posting describing the Plantronics Colorplus
• The technical documentation for the Paradise EGA chipset in the Amstrad
  Amstrad
  Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes....
  
   PC-1640
  PC-1512
  The Amstrad PC1512 was Amstrad's mostly IBM PC-compatible computer system, first manufactured in 1986. It was later succeeded by the PC1640.It launched for £499 and sold very well, as it was one of the first cheap PCs in Europe...
  
  describes its Plantronics compatibility mode.