Video Graphics Array (VGA) refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480 resolution itself. While this resolution was superseded in the personal computer market in the 1990s, it is becoming a popular resolution on mobile devices.

VGA was the last graphical standard introduced by IBM that the majority of PC clone manufacturers conformed to, making it today (as of 2010^[update]) the lowest common denominator that almost all post-1990 PC graphics hardware can be expected to implement down to the lowest level of hardware registers, obviating the need for any device-specific firmware or driver software (while all VGA compatible hardware has on-board firmware as well, the only standardized API of that firmware was created for 16-bit MS-DOS and can't easily be used by newer 32- or 64-bit operating systems).^{[citation needed]} For example, the Microsoft Windows splash screen, in versions prior to Windows Vista, appears while the machine is still operating in VGA mode, which is the reason that this screen always appears in reduced resolution and color depth. Windows Vista and newer versions can make use of the extended firmware of newer graphics hardware to show their splash screen in a higher resolution than VGA allows.