In the home computer universe, such computers were the first ones having a programmable graphics unit that did more than paste the framebuffer into the screen.
While the PCs were still displaying text, or if you were lucky to own an Hercules card, gray text, or maybe a CGA one, with 4 colours.
While the Amigas, which I am more confortable with, were doing this in the mid-80's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Px-ZkObTo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ga41edXw3A
The original Amiga 1000, had on its motherboard, later reduced to fit into an Amiga 500,
Motorola 68000 CPU, a programmable sounds chip with DMA channels (Paula), and a programable blitter chip (Agnus aka early GPUs).
You would build in RAM the audio, or graphics instructions for the respetive chipset, set the DMA parameters, and let them lose.
Thanks! Early computing history is very interesting (I know that this wasn't the earliest). They also sometimes explain certain odd design decisions that are still followed today.
Hey! I had an Amiga 1000 back in the day - it was simply awesome.