GPUs, as they became programmable (and maybe even a little bit before that...), started to take cues from SIMD Supercomputers. So the compute methodologies were researched first, and then GPUs (ie: applications to graphics) were applied afterwards.
I've heard rumors that the first programmable GPUs were considered because GPUs already were in SIMD-style compute and running instructions in a programmable way at the hardware/firmware level. It just needed to be "revealed" to OpenGL or DirectX programmers.
I'm thinking closer to 90s period, where "graphics cards" developed by Voodoo / 3dfx and its Glide API were clearly along the DirectX / OpenGL inspiration path. (3d Graphics pipeline / transform & lightning / etc. etc.). I don't know the exact point when these 3d accelerators became programmable with vertex/pixel shaders, but Glide is clearly on the path and part of the history here.
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You're right in that 80s / Arcade chips look to be different. Its a programmable graphics chip alright, but I wouldn't call that chip SIMD, not from what I can see from Wikipedia at least.
GPUs, as they became programmable (and maybe even a little bit before that...), started to take cues from SIMD Supercomputers. So the compute methodologies were researched first, and then GPUs (ie: applications to graphics) were applied afterwards.
I've heard rumors that the first programmable GPUs were considered because GPUs already were in SIMD-style compute and running instructions in a programmable way at the hardware/firmware level. It just needed to be "revealed" to OpenGL or DirectX programmers.