Abstract Computer graphics was conceived as, and remains for the most part, a line-drawing phenomenon. The cautious management of display lists or of in-line vector generators has captured most of the attention of researchers in computer graphics. Cathode ray tubes with randomly positionable beams have served as the primary medium for this research and development. The underlying position of this paper is that the future of computer graphics does not lie in ‘vectored’ displays but in raster scan television, conceivably as we know it in our homes. This posture is motivated by arguments of cost and compatibility, but the most salient motivation comes in view of the ubiquitous nature of raster scan display technologies. This paper explains a way to implement an image processing approach to computer graphics, one that is conceptually straightforward and, in terms of hardware, fairly easy to design. A device is being built that encompases as much as is known about raster scan, multi-bit per point displays. The work described is conducted, principally, to produce a multi-bit per point graphics output device that dynamically shares its image storage with the memory space of an expanded mini-computer.