Before GPUs arrived, general-purpose computing, as we know it, was only possible with CPUs, which were the first mainstream processors manufactured for both consumers as well as advanced computing enthusiasts.
Both computational and graphical processing were handled only by them. This meant that both the tasks of processing and handling computation of input and showing its corresponding computed output on a display were all handled by a CPU.
The history of general-purpose computing goes way back to the 1950s, before GPUs arrived and revolutionized the concept. The 1970s witnessed the rise of a new era, when the first commercial CPU, the Intel 4004, was released by Intel in 1971. The first AMD CPU was also launched in the 70s with the launch of AM2900 in 1975. There was no looking back, and a new cycle of CPU manufacturing...