The PDP-1 - games machine?
Ross Simpson
talks about the PDP-1 computer from the early 1960s & about one of the games
written for it called "SpaceWar", I was suprised to see that this game had
many varients (done by various hackers at MIT).
Since a few people have been talking about the later PDP machines has anyone
used this particular model (or may have even programmed SpaceWar), out of
curiosity I was wonderning which language it would have used. The book also
talks about a few other games which were written for it (Mouse-in-a-Maze
being one), however would anyone know how many & was this machine mostly
used as a games machine or could it used some serious applications?
For anyone who has used one, the book suggests it being some sort of
minicomputer since it was smaller than mainframes of the time, would that be
correct?
One last thing. How did the games written for this machine compare with the
arcade type written (like Space Invaders in 1978)? Only reason I ask it is
because of some of varations of SpaceWar sound quite impressive.
Thanks.
Ross.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
Look at http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/index.html (among many other places)
for details on SpaceWar. For information on the PDP-1, see
http://www.spies.com/~aek/pdf/dec/pdp1/ . While a great deal of PDP-1 time
was spent playing games, the PDP-1 was very much a serious machine.
(<grin>) I am familiar with SpaceWar for the PDP-1, the PDP-7 and the
PDP-12. In all cases, the source language was very tightly coded assembler.
These machines used vector-plotting CRT displays, sometimes under direct CPU
control, sometimes (as on the 340 connected to the PDP-7 I knew) through
vector-plotting hardware. Given the limitations enforced by these machines
(small address spaces, slow discrete transistor logic, slow core memory),
not only was assembler required to make a presentable game, but very clever
assembler at that. These were state of the art real-time graphic
applications in their day. And very well done.
For years the Boston Computer Museum had SpaceWar on public display, running
on a PDP-1. That machine may also have been running SpaceWar at DEC's
in-house computer museum, and it was definitely running SpaceWar at the MIT
Electronics Research Society circa 1977. The machine is currently at the
Computer History Museum in Sunnyvale. I do not believe it is running. The
RetroComputing Society of Rhode Island (www.osfn.org/rcs) currently has a
PDP-12 that runs SpaceWar. At the Vintage Computer Faire East a couple of
years ago Carl Friend and Mike Umbricht had the -12 running SpaceWar on
display, and another fellow there (whose name I did not catch) had a "real"
(meaning, vector-plotted, not raster scanned) version of SpaceWar running on
a DCC-16, which was a Nova clone. And although I've never seen one in
action, I've no doubt SpaceWar was very popular on the PDP-11/05-based GT05.
Megan
>a DCC-16, which was a Nova clone. And although I've never seen one in
>action, I've no doubt SpaceWar was very popular on the PDP-11/05-based GT05.
I have a friend who wrote a spacewar for the *GT40* which we also
played on a GT42. I still have the code and the original control
boxes we built for it (wired directly to a parallel I/O board,
A DR11, if I remember correctly).
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | email: mbg at world.std.com |
| | |
| "this space | (s/ at /@/) |
| unavoidably left blank" | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (DEC '77-'98) | required." - mbg KB1FCA |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Geoffrey G. Rochat
> played on a GT42. I still have the code and the original control
> boxes we built for it (wired directly to a parallel I/O board,
> A DR11, if I remember correctly).
Megan, I stand corrected. (Well, actually, right now sit corrected.
Standing while typing is too hard...) I confused the GT40 with the VT05.
The GT40 was the PDP-11/05-based graphics machine. The VT05 was a video
terminal for the PDP-8. I don't think, now, that there was a GT05, although
I prepared to sit corrected on that too. Anyway, lotsa good information on
the GT40 at www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/dec/gt40/ .
Charles Richmond
>
> I've got a Time Life Book which talks about Computer Software. In this it
> talks about the PDP-1 computer from the early 1960s & about one of the games
> written for it called "SpaceWar", I was suprised to see that this game had
> many varients (done by various hackers at MIT).
>
>
> Since a few people have been talking about the later PDP machines has anyone
> used this particular model (or may have even programmed SpaceWar), out of
> curiosity I was wonderning which language it would have used. The book also
> talks about a few other games which were written for it (Mouse-in-a-Maze
> being one), however would anyone know how many & was this machine mostly
> used as a games machine or could it used some serious applications?
>
for it. Spacewar! was written in PDP-1 assembly language originally.
Many ports exist today...you should be able to get a Spacewar! written
in C so you can run it on your computer. You can get the file
"spacewar.tar.gz" at:
<http://sources.isc.org/games/arcade/spacewar.txt>
>
> For anyone who has used one, the book suggests it being some sort of
> minicomputer since it was smaller than mainframes of the time, would that be
> correct?
>
Yes, the PDP-1 was considered a minicomputer.
>
> One last thing. How did the games written for this machine compare with the
> arcade type written (like Space Invaders in 1978)? Only reason I ask it is
> because of some of varations of SpaceWar sound quite impressive.
>
There is an article that appeared in the early 1980's in
"Creative Computing" magazine. The article was written by
someone intimately connected with the Spacewar! program.
The article is reconstructed atthe following web site:
<http://users.rcn.com/enf/lore/spacewar/spacewar.html>
There is a photo of a PDP-1 set up...and photos of screens
from a Spacewar! game in progress. Decide for yourself how
it compares to more modern vidio games. IMHO it was pretty
good for 1962. This article should tell you more than you
wanted to know about Spacewar!
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Geoffrey G. Rochat
Gee, with the PDQ Monitor we used at the MIT Electronics Research Society's
PDP-7 (our beloved Bertha) - which was a modification of DEC's PDP-7
Advanced Software System - the bang character wasn't legal in a filename.
Then, again, we had a KSR-35 TTY, and that could only do upper case, so to
us the name was SPACEWAR. And on the PDP-1 it was loaded from an ancient
and crufty Nth-generation papertape, with some unknown's smudged pencilled
scribbling on it. As best I could decipher, the writing came out as
S<mumble>, so I'm not sure of interior caps, but there sure wasn't a bang at
the end of it.
Ross Simpson
> The proper name is "Spacewar!"...*not* "SpaceWar".
Ah, okay Charles, Thankyou. Yes, even the book made good use of the
explanation marks!
> Certainly, the PDP-1 was a serious machine with serious programs written
> for it. Spacewar! was written in PDP-1 assembly language originally.
> Many ports exist today...you should be able to get a Spacewar! written
> in C so you can run it on your computer. You can get the file
> "spacewar.tar.gz" at:
>
> <http://sources.isc.org/games/arcade/spacewar.txt>
Ta :-)
> There is an article that appeared in the early 1980's in
> "Creative Computing" magazine. The article was written by
> someone intimately connected with the Spacewar! program.
> The article is reconstructed atthe following web site:
>
> <http://users.rcn.com/enf/lore/spacewar/spacewar.html>
>
> There is a photo of a PDP-1 set up...and photos of screens
> from a Spacewar! game in progress. Decide for yourself how
> it compares to more modern vidio games. IMHO it was pretty
> good for 1962. This article should tell you more than you
> wanted to know about Spacewar!
One of the links Geoffrey provided also had shown a screen shot of SpaceWar!
I must say, to produce some high resolution graphics in 1962 is a thing of
beauty. I'd say it would have taken the microcomputer years (after it came
out) to produce some graphics of that nature. I'll have to check the
microcomputer museum to see which microcomputer you'd have to compare it
with.
Ross.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I've got a Time Life Book which talks about Computer Software. In this it
> talks about the PDP-1 computer from the early 1960s & about one of the games
> written for it called "SpaceWar", I was suprised to see that this game had
> many varients (done by various hackers at MIT).
cambridge science center had a 2250-4 (aka 2250 with 1130 as
controller). somebody in the late '60s ported spacewar to the
2250-4. the 2250 keyboard (looked much like selectric keyboard) was
split in half ... with key controls for two players on the left and
right half. i don't know if the person that had done the 2250-4/1130
port was involved in the pdp-1 at all (although i don't believe it was
a very large community ... since just about everybody at csc had been
around ctss and/or other aspects of mit computing for some period).
I would sometimes bring my kids in on weekends and they would play
while i worked ... they would also sometimes chase each other up and
down the hall ... which would get complaints from other possible
people also in on weekends.
picture of 2250-4
http://www.shubs.net/1130/functional/DisplayUnit.html
other 2250-4/1130 ref:
http://www.forth.com/Content/History/History1c.htm
http://ibm1130.org/lib
misc. past refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#67 oddly portable machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#37 S/360 development burnout?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#66 360 Architecture, Multics, ... was (Re: X86 ultimate CISC? No.)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#24 A question for you old guys -- IBM 1130 information
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#71 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#10 5-player Spacewar?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#12 5-player Spacewar?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#13 5-player Spacewar?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#14 5-player Spacewar?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#51 Logo (was Re: 5-player Spacewar?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#8 VM: checking some myths.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#26 Help needed on conversion from VM to OS390
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#47 TSS/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#59 history of CMS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#20 6600 Console was Re: CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#17 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#22 Computer Terminal Design Over the Years
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#17 PLX
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#78 Newsgroup cliques?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#0 Wanted: Weird Programming Language
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#1 Wanted: Weird Programming Language
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#72 OT: One for the historians - 360/91
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Internet trivia, 20th anniv: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm
jmfb...@aol.com
TLH 858 <Я@З.СЬ> wrote:
>x-no-archive: yes
>
>Geoffrey G. Rochat seems to have said:
>
>
>>For years the Boston Computer Museum had SpaceWar on public display,
running
>>on a PDP-1. That machine may also have been running SpaceWar at DEC's
>>in-house computer museum, and it was definitely running SpaceWar at the
MIT
>>Electronics Research Society circa 1977.
>
>the members of CC341 used to head over to play a game or three when
>they had the chance.
They did?! How the hell did I miss that? I bet you're talking
about the guys who worked those odd hours ;-).
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Joe Morris
>I've got a Time Life Book which talks about Computer Software. In this it
>talks about the PDP-1 computer from the early 1960s & about one of the games
>written for it called "SpaceWar", I was suprised to see that this game had
>many varients (done by various hackers at MIT).
Using "hackers" (in the GOOD sense of the word!) and "MIT" in the same
sentence is redundant.
>Since a few people have been talking about the later PDP machines has anyone
>used this particular model (or may have even programmed SpaceWar), out of
>curiosity I was wonderning which language it would have used.
MACRO, which was the assembler for the PDP-1. Like so many well-written
programs of the day, written with lots of attention to memory usage, but
still easy to work with if you could figure out what the author of a given
section of code was trying to do. Except for the fundamental constants
block on the first page, and the identity of the stars that were displayed
by Pete Sampson's code, comments were few and far between.
> The book also
>talks about a few other games which were written for it (Mouse-in-a-Maze
>being one), however would anyone know how many & was this machine mostly
>used as a games machine or could it used some serious applications?
MIT was, of course, an academic institution, and that's why the PDP-1
was installed. I have a recollection (and if Marvin Minsky is reading
this, perhaps he could confirm or refute it) that there was a sign in
the PDP-1 room (second floor of Building 26) listing who could bump whom
from the schedule for using the PDP-1. It went something like this:
1) Professors doing research
2) Grad students doing research
3) Grad students working on thesis
4) Undergrads working on thesis
5) Students doing classwork
6) Anyone doing personal work
7) games
8) Spacewar
It's worth noting that when the first DEC drum was installed on the
PDP-1, one of its 32 tracks was immediately allocated to Spacewar, and
the console tape for the game shrank to a tiny bootstrap loader.
>For anyone who has used one, the book suggests it being some sort of
>minicomputer since it was smaller than mainframes of the time, would that be
>correct?
I would have to dig through my notes to be sure, but the PDP-1 was housed
in a single row of cabinets perhaps ... um ... let's say maybe 12 feet long.
Definitely a "minicomputer" by the comparison to the big mainframes.
>One last thing. How did the games written for this machine compare with the
>arcade type written (like Space Invaders in 1978)? Only reason I ask it is
>because of some of varations of SpaceWar sound quite impressive.
Depends on which arcarde type you want to compare it against. I recall
in the early 1970s seeing Spacewar (in mostly the original concept) as
a 25-cent arcade game.
Joe Morris
bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca
> They did?! How the hell did I miss that? I bet you're talking
> about the guys who worked those odd hours ;-).
> /BAH
Oh -- you must mean regular shifts with coffe-breaks and lunch hours.
People who code or debug don't have them. :)
Ben.
Pete Fenelon
> Oh -- you must mean regular shifts with coffe-breaks and lunch hours.
> People who code or debug don't have them. :)
> Ben.
People who can code or debug can pick and choose their hours ;P
pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" HMHB
Rupert Pigott
news:v625qdn...@corp.supernews.com...
> bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
> > Oh -- you must mean regular shifts with coffe-breaks and lunch hours.
> > People who code or debug don't have them. :)
> > Ben.
>
> People who can code or debug can pick and choose their hours ;P
Depends for whom they work. Some places want you 24/7 and
wonder why you're partially dead. :)
Cheers,
Rupert
Pete Fenelon
>> People who can code or debug can pick and choose their hours ;P
>
> Depends for whom they work. Some places want you 24/7 and
> wonder why you're partially dead. :)
>
If you're good enough, you can move ;P
Ross Simpson
> >I've got a Time Life Book which talks about Computer Software. In this it
> >talks about the PDP-1 computer from the early 1960s & about one of the
games
> >written for it called "SpaceWar", I was suprised to see that this game
had
> >many varients (done by various hackers at MIT).
>
> Using "hackers" (in the GOOD sense of the word!) and "MIT" in the same
> sentence is redundant.
Oh yes. Well I don't think there were many programs written back then, where
it would have been illegal to hack from other programs. The bad side of
hackers today, comes from taking a copyrighted piece of code.
Well I wasn't thinking in terms of Colour graphics (Space Invaders would of
had some Colour, but the resolution isn't all that high), however I was
thinking in terms of the Resolution of the graphics. From the screen shots
I've seen of Spacewar! it looks to be fairly detailed, unfortunately I
haven't found any details about the Screen Resolution, however I would be
interested to know the details of it if someone knows. I know it's
monochrome, but I'm guessing from Screen Shots it's simular to 640x200
resolution (however the round screen may slightly change it). What I am
interested in knowing is how long did it take, after the micros came out, to
archieve a simular resolution to that of the PDP-1 (unfortunately I don't
know how to do that comparison unless I had some idea of the resolution).
Thanks for your details.
Ross.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
of
> had some Colour, but the resolution isn't all that high), however I was
> thinking in terms of the Resolution of the graphics. From the screen shots
> I've seen of Spacewar! it looks to be fairly detailed, unfortunately I
> haven't found any details about the Screen Resolution, however I would be
> interested to know the details of it if someone knows. I know it's
> monochrome, but I'm guessing from Screen Shots it's simular to 640x200
> resolution (however the round screen may slightly change it). What I am
> interested in knowing is how long did it take, after the micros came out,
to
> archieve a simular resolution to that of the PDP-1 (unfortunately I don't
> know how to do that comparison unless I had some idea of the resolution).
The Type 30 CRT Display used on the PDP-1 had a screen resolution of
1024x1024, which is substantial even for today. But it is a meaningless
comparison because the very nature of display technology has changed. In
the Type 30 the CPU drove two 10-bit DACs, which then drove the vertical and
horizontal deflection circuitry of the display. The Type 30 was a
point-plotting display that the CPU had to continually refresh, and the long
persistence of the phosphors in the CRT itself made for a non-flickering
image. It was this need to continually re-draw the screen fast enough with
programmed I/O that required all the clever programming.
The Type 340 Graphics Processor on the PDP-7 I knew was a re-packaged Type
30 CRT Display with a co-processor, based on PDP-8 technology, that used
data break transfers (today known as DMA) from the PDP-7's. The 340 could
automatically refresh the screen in a point-plotting mode, or it could be
programmed to automatically draw lines between absolute or relative
endpoints. I believe the display processor in the later GT40 worked much
the same way.
Note that none of these machines used raster scanning, which is what you
find on PCs (and most everything else) today, an extension of basic
television technology. Simplified, in a raster-scanned system a chunk of
memory is used as a field of bits describing each pixel on the screen, and
as the raster-scanning circuitry in the display paints the screen one pixel
at a time, usually left-to-right and top-to-bottom, circuitry reads each
pixel's descriptor from memory and uses the information to display the
pixel's intensity and hue. In point plotting technology the CPU would
position the CRT's electron beam at an X-Y location on the screen and place
a point there, then position the electron beam at another location and place
a point there, etc. The location of subsequent points need not bear any
relationship to each other - the writing was random access - except that the
closer one could arrange one's subsequent points the faster the display's
DACs could get the beam there. In vector plotting technology one would
specify the endpoints of each line segment, and circuitry in the display
would write to the DACs and move the CRT beam for you. But, again, writing
to the screen was random access. One further point: In a raster scanned
display once you turn on a pixel in memory it tends to stay on, refreshed
every time the circuitry re-paints the screen. In the older technologies,
once the electron beam leaves a spot the spot begins to fade, so unless you
re-write the same set of points over and over the image fades.
Why did technology start with one thing and move to another? Well, the
basic PDP-1 had all of 4KW of core memory, each word being 18 bits. A
1024x1024 display, had it been raster-scanned with a single bit depth pixel
plane, would have required a megabit of core memory - far more than the
processor could handle, let alone the user pay for. Precision DACs and CRT
drive circuitry was expensive, but at the time nowhere near that of all that
core. So the early display designers based their technology on the idea of
making a computer-controlled two-axis oscilloscope, modifying that to being
a smart oscilloscope when the 340 and later GT40 came out. But starting in
the late '70s semiconductor memories became cheap and plentiful, so it
became possible to have large amounts of memory dedicated to displays. This
allowed display designers to base their designs around the idea of
televisions, with low-cost raster-scanned displays. Once memory became
cheap enough, a display technology that could borrow ideas from high-volume,
low-cost television technology proved cheaper.
You can find details on the Type 30 CRT Display for the PDP-1 on Al Kossow's
site, in the PDP-1 Handbook. Details on the PDP-7's 340 Graphics Processor,
specifically, are not available (And if anyone has the information, please
get it to Al!), but the 339 Graphics Processor used on the PDP-9, a
re-packaged PDP-7, are available on Al's site in the PDP-9 folder. I am at
a loss to find a similar reference to raster-scanning; I used to have an
excellent book in my well-ordered library, a pamphlet published by a company
in Westford, MA, that made raster-scanned systems, but since I can't
remember the name of the company I appear to have lost the information in
alphabetical order. You might try Don Lancaster's "The TV Typewriter" book.
For television technology in general, there is no better place to start than
Grob's "Basic Television."
Ross Simpson
message...
> The Type 30 CRT Display used on the PDP-1 had a screen resolution of
> 1024x1024, which is substantial even for today. But it is a meaningless
> comparison because the very nature of display technology has changed. In
> the Type 30 the CPU drove two 10-bit DACs, which then drove the vertical
and
> horizontal deflection circuitry of the display. The Type 30 was a
> point-plotting display that the CPU had to continually refresh, and the
long
> persistence of the phosphors in the CRT itself made for a non-flickering
> image. It was this need to continually re-draw the screen fast enough
with
> programmed I/O that required all the clever programming.
Ah yes I see. Well the closest thing I come to observe something like that
was an interlace demo which continuously had to update the screen with tiny
characters. This technique was better on a green screen because the pixels
produced onto the output contiously dimmed out slower than what a colour
screen would, hence more readable.
If this technique produced a simular effect on a Type 30 CRT Display (with
the pixels) to the green screen then the result should be just as neat.
But yeah, I see your point about the clever programming, in order to
generate the output quick enough is the key.
When you'd perhaps consider 20 years down the track when the CGA card came
out with the IBM PC, which had blinking problems when moving the cursor a
line down at the bottom of the screen, I'd consider that more annoying than
constantly refreshing the screen, however as you said it would be in the
programming to produce the best possible effect.
> The Type 340 Graphics Processor on the PDP-7 I knew was a re-packaged Type
> 30 CRT Display with a co-processor, based on PDP-8 technology, that used
> data break transfers (today known as DMA) from the PDP-7's. The 340 could
> automatically refresh the screen in a point-plotting mode, or it could be
> programmed to automatically draw lines between absolute or relative
> endpoints. I believe the display processor in the later GT40 worked much
> the same way.
Well that sounds better, however this is talking about the minicomputers.
Yes I understand that. Even my old 8bit computer has some demos which
produce rasters. It was flashy enough then (some years back now), but I
wouldn't expect things like that on a 40 y.o minicomputer.
> Why did technology start with one thing and move to another? Well, the
> basic PDP-1 had all of 4KW of core memory, each word being 18 bits. A
> 1024x1024 display, had it been raster-scanned with a single bit depth
pixel
> plane, would have required a megabit of core memory - far more than the
> processor could handle, let alone the user pay for. Precision DACs and
CRT
> drive circuitry was expensive, but at the time nowhere near that of all
that
> core. So the early display designers based their technology on the idea
of
> making a computer-controlled two-axis oscilloscope, modifying that to
being
> a smart oscilloscope when the 340 and later GT40 came out. But starting
in
> the late '70s semiconductor memories became cheap and plentiful, so it
> became possible to have large amounts of memory dedicated to displays.
This
> allowed display designers to base their designs around the idea of
> televisions, with low-cost raster-scanned displays. Once memory became
> cheap enough, a display technology that could borrow ideas from
high-volume,
> low-cost television technology proved cheaper.
Yeah well that's true too. My book on computer graphics explains how the
more detailed the image is the larger it becomes. For the PDP-1 the only
advantage with the 1024x1024 resolution would be it gives a large playing
grid for games like Spacewar!. Obviously to produce a 1024x1024 image on one
of those would be mind boggling!
Ross.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
"Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever> wrote:
RS> Well I wasn't thinking in terms of Colour graphics (Space Invaders
RS> would of had some Colour, but the resolution isn't all that high),
ROTFL. Space Invaders was monochrome, but there was a coloured
gel fixed to the screen to make the bottom of the screen a different
colour to the top.
--
C:>WIN | Directable Mirrors
The computer obeys and wins. |A Better Way To Focus The Sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licenses available - see:
| http://www.sohara.org/
Charles Richmond
"Having a personal life is like stealing from the company."
jmfb...@aol.com
Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
>bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
>> Oh -- you must mean regular shifts with coffe-breaks and lunch hours.
>> People who code or debug don't have them. :)
>> Ben.
>
>People who can code or debug can pick and choose their hours ;P
Nope. Not when they have to take a million dollar collection of
hardware stand-alone.
jmfb...@aol.com
TLH 858 <Я@З.СЬ> wrote:
>jmfb...@aol.com seems to have said:
>
>>They did?! How the hell did I miss that? I bet you're talking
>>about the guys who worked those odd hours ;-).
>
Yup. Those hours. I don't know why, but I have a brick wall
at 2 AM. I can get up early to start at 3 AM. I've worked
second shift. But I never could cross that 2 AM line without
suddenly geting cast in jello.
Pete Fenelon
>>
>> Depends for whom they work. Some places want you 24/7 and
>> wonder why you're partially dead. :)
>>
> As it said once in Dilbert (the comic strip):
>
> "Having a personal life is like stealing from the company."
>
I'm reminded of the lovely line from the Clive James/Pete Atkin song
"Session Man's Blues": "They want me to work on the afternoon after I'm
dead".
CBFalconer
> Ross Simpson <yeah_whatever> wrote:
>
> > One of the links Geoffrey provided also had shown a screen shot
> > of SpaceWar!
> >
> > I must say, to produce some high resolution graphics in 1962 is
> > a thing of beauty. I'd say it would have taken the microcomputer
> > years (after it came out) to produce some graphics of that
> > nature. I'll have to check the microcomputer museum to see which
> > microcomputer you'd have to compare it with.
>
> display's resolution was limited by the narrowness of the electron
> beam driving it. The only home microcomputer based gaming system
> I'm aware of with a vector display was GCE's 6809 based Vectrex
> console.
The display itself wasn't that hard in those days. You needed a
D/A for the x, and another for the y coordinate. 1k resolutions
wasn't too hard, 4k was harder, especially if you maintained
monotonicity. We did this sort of thing all the time for nuclear
spectrum displays. You had too have an intensity control to blank
during spot motion, and all sorts of things depended on the
dynamics. 10 uSec per point displayed was good performance. We
used Tek XY scopes in some applications. IIRC they cost about
$500 each.
Of course that is not a dynamic graphic, nor a line drawer. But
it can be the end point for a Bresenham algorithm.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
Howard S Shubs
"Geoffrey G. Rochat" <777ge...@777pkworks777.777com777> wrote:
> For years the Boston Computer Museum had SpaceWar on public display, running
> on a PDP-1.
Yeah, it looked like that, didn't it.
Now, think about it a little. How much power does a PDP-1 use? How
many BTUs? How often would the hardware have broken down if they'd had
it running all the time, and what would the cost of all that been?
Since when did that museam have that kind of budget?
They didn't actually run the PDP-1 itself except on rare occasions, as I
understand it. What was actually happening was that a Mac was driving
that display and those controllers at the Museam.
--
Today, on Paper-view: The World Origami Championship
Howard S Shubs
"Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever> wrote:
> Well I wasn't thinking in terms of Colour graphics (Space Invaders would of
> had some Colour, but the resolution isn't all that high),
Space Invaders was black&white with a couple of plastic color strips
layed on top of the monitor.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
running
> > on a PDP-1.
>
> Yeah, it looked like that, didn't it.
>
> Now, think about it a little. How much power does a PDP-1 use? How
> many BTUs? How often would the hardware have broken down if they'd had
> it running all the time, and what would the cost of all that been?
> Since when did that museam have that kind of budget?
>
> They didn't actually run the PDP-1 itself except on rare occasions, as I
> understand it. What was actually happening was that a Mac was driving
> that display and those controllers at the Museam.
Baloney. It ran.
I will grant you that they didn't run it often, but I recall one
Thanksgiving my father was in the Boston area visiting me, and we went to
the Computer Museum. The PDP-1 was there, shut down. I found a youngling
docent in the area and asked him if we could see the thing operate, and he
explained, as you just did, that it only ran on special occasions. I
explained to him that I ran that darned machine for two years, ergo my being
there made it a special occasion. Seeing the look in my eye he didn't feel
like arguing, so he turned the machine on and attempted to boot Spacewar on
it. No go; the CPU booted, but no spaceships or sparkly star on the Type 30
display. He tried again, same thing. After the third failure I stepped
over the velvet rope and started opening up skins and wiggling connectors.
The docent panicked, and ran off looking for Security. By the time he got
back, accompanied by a guard, the PDP-1 was booted and my father and I were
playing Spacewar on the accumulator switches. What had happened was that
the power connection feeding AC to the CRT's high-voltage supply had come
loose - again! - and once I got it mated up everything was fine. The docent
stood there with his mouth wide open, and I said to him, "Kid, I told ya'.
I *ran* this machine for two years. I know every damned loose connection in
it." The guard threw back his head and laughed, and the docent wandered
away shaking his head. I guess after awhile the staff at the Boston
Computer Museum got used to see all kinds of serious gnurds wander
through...
Trust me, Howard, whatever other mickey mouse(tm) things may have been
cobbled together behind the scenes and the Boston Computer Museum, the Type
30 display on the PDP-1 was not one of them. Perhaps your being there just
wasn't a special enough occasion for them.
philicorda
the
> arcade type written (like Space Invaders in 1978)? Only reason I ask it is
> because of some of varations of SpaceWar sound quite impressive.
MESS will emulate a DEC PDP-1 and run spacewar. (It won't run anything else
:)
Download it and try it yourself!
--
Britain set up Iraq in 1922. The area had been three separate
provinces-Basra, Baghdad and Mosul-which were part of the Ottoman Empire run
from Turkey. Britain's rulers wanted the territory after oil reserves were
discovered there in the late 19th century.
Howard S Shubs
"Geoffrey G. Rochat" <777ge...@777pkworks777.777com777> wrote:
> Baloney. It ran.
I didn't say it didn't. I said that it was rare that they actually ran
it. Usually it was a Mac running an emulation. I saw it "running" that
way on multiple occasions.
> I will grant you that they didn't run it often, but I recall one
> Thanksgiving my father was in the Boston area visiting me, and we went to
> the Computer Museum. The PDP-1 was there, shut down. I found a youngling
> docent in the area and asked him if we could see the thing operate, and he
> explained, as you just did, that it only ran on special occasions. I
> explained to him that I ran that darned machine for two years, ergo my being
> there made it a special occasion. Seeing the look in my eye he didn't feel
> like arguing, so he turned the machine on and attempted to boot Spacewar on
> it. No go; the CPU booted, but no spaceships or sparkly star on the Type 30
> display. He tried again, same thing. After the third failure I stepped
> over the velvet rope and started opening up skins and wiggling connectors.
> The docent panicked, and ran off looking for Security. By the time he got
> back, accompanied by a guard, the PDP-1 was booted and my father and I were
> playing Spacewar on the accumulator switches. What had happened was that
> the power connection feeding AC to the CRT's high-voltage supply had come
> loose - again! - and once I got it mated up everything was fine. The docent
> stood there with his mouth wide open, and I said to him, "Kid, I told ya'.
> I *ran* this machine for two years. I know every damned loose connection in
> it." The guard threw back his head and laughed, and the docent wandered
> away shaking his head. I guess after awhile the staff at the Boston
> Computer Museum got used to see all kinds of serious gnurds wander
> through...
Good story, yeah.
Okay, what's a "docent", and what's a "gnurds"?
> Trust me, Howard, whatever other mickey mouse(tm) things may have been
> cobbled together behind the scenes and the Boston Computer Museum, the Type
> 30 display on the PDP-1 was not one of them. Perhaps your being there just
> wasn't a special enough occasion for them.
I wasn't suggesting that my attendance -was- important enough for them
to run it. I didn't seriously consider asking them to power it up.
Explain the lack of any noise from the PDP-1 when I played Spacewar "on"
it, and the little Mac "wait" watch cursor which popped up sometimes
between games, then.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
> > Baloney. It ran.
>
> I didn't say it didn't. I said that it was rare that they actually ran
> it. Usually it was a Mac running an emulation. I saw it "running" that
> way on multiple occasions.
>
>
> Good story, yeah.
It's even true.
> Okay, what's a "docent", and what's a "gnurds"?
"Docent" can be found in any decent English language dictionary. For
"gnurds" do a Google search for "Jargon File." Alternate spellings (not my
preference) are nurds and nerds.
> > Trust me, Howard, whatever other mickey mouse(tm) things may have been
> > cobbled together behind the scenes and the Boston Computer Museum, the
Type
> > 30 display on the PDP-1 was not one of them. Perhaps your being there
just
> > wasn't a special enough occasion for them.
>
> I wasn't suggesting that my attendance -was- important enough for them
> to run it. I didn't seriously consider asking them to power it up.
>
> Explain the lack of any noise from the PDP-1 when I played Spacewar "on"
> it, and the little Mac "wait" watch cursor which popped up sometimes
> between games, then.
I dunno what you thought you were playing Spacewar on, or what you might
have been told you were playing Spacewar on, but it sure wasn't a PDP-1 with
a Type 30 graphics display. Your description strongly hints it was a
standard Mac raster-scanned display, and there's no way a Type 30 graphics
display could handle that. (See my previous threadlet regarding raster vs.
point-plotting vs. vector displays.) Take a look at the PDP-1 Handbook on
Al Kossow's site (http://www.spies.com/~aek/pdf/dec/pdp1/) and look for the
Type 30 display toward the end. My guess is that that's not what you were
in front of at the Boston COmputer Museum when you played Spacewar, although
the PDP-1 connected to a Type 30 were, in fact, on display for awhile.
Through one Thanksgiving anyway...
I do have an old Mac Classic in my retrocomputer collection that runs a
decent version of Spacewar, and my teenaged son whups me at it with some
frequency. Perhaps that is what they had you playing at the Boston Computer
Museum, as porting Spacewar to other computers has been a standard hack for
several generations of programmers. But if the Boston Computer Museum led
you to believe you were actually on the PDP-1 when you were playing
Spacewar, rather than on a more modern machine that happened to be sitting
close to the PDP-1 and its writeup on Spacewar, then shame on 'em!
Ross Simpson
> > Well I wasn't thinking in terms of Colour graphics (Space Invaders would
of
> > had some Colour, but the resolution isn't all that high),
>
> Space Invaders was black&white with a couple of plastic color strips
> layed on top of the monitor.
Oh okay. I've been playing the Atari VCS version too much.
Ross.
Ross Simpson
> MESS will emulate a DEC PDP-1 and run spacewar. (It won't run anything
else
> :)
> Download it and try it yourself!
Ah, maybe when it can run a few of the other PDP-1 programs! :-)
Still Geoffrey brought up a very good point about emulating those machines &
that is you can't emulate the way the original screen operated.
Ross.
Howard S Shubs
"Geoffrey G. Rochat" <777ge...@777pkworks777.777com777> wrote:
> It's even true.
Didn't mean to suggest I thought otherwise, sir!
> "Docent" can be found in any decent English language dictionary. For
> "gnurds" do a Google search for "Jargon File." Alternate spellings (not my
> preference) are nurds and nerds.
Geez, make me lean over for my hardcopy dictionary. mmm... okay, got
it. I'll leave "gnurds" alone for now 'cause I'm just not in the mood.
> I dunno what you thought you were playing Spacewar on, or what you might
> have been told you were playing Spacewar on, but it sure wasn't a PDP-1 with
> a Type 30 graphics display. Your description strongly hints it was a
> standard Mac raster-scanned display, and there's no way a Type 30 graphics
> display could handle that.
Yes, that's what I was saying. It was round, and fairly large, but it
wasn't actually running on the PDP-1 it was purportedly attached to. I
don't know what happened when they actually wanted to use it with the
PDP-1. As I recall, the PDP-1 was in a kind of a corner. This display
was out at the end of a low cabinet perpendicular to one of the walls.
It's been a few years, though. Kinda "no kidding", y'know? Next time
I'm out at Mountain View, I'll see if I can check it out. No, that's
pointless, as I'm not likely to get out there again any time soon. I'll
just contact the Museam directly and ask 'em what the story is with the
setup as it was in Boston, and as it is now.... sent. I'll update when
I have more info.
I'm not disputing what you're saying, sir. I'm just trying to iron out
the difference between what I saw and what you're telling me was there.
> I do have an old Mac Classic in my retrocomputer collection that runs a
> decent version of Spacewar, and my teenaged son whups me at it with some
> frequency. Perhaps that is what they had you playing at the Boston Computer
> Museum, as porting Spacewar to other computers has been a standard hack for
> several generations of programmers. But if the Boston Computer Museum led
> you to believe you were actually on the PDP-1 when you were playing
> Spacewar, rather than on a more modern machine that happened to be sitting
> close to the PDP-1 and its writeup on Spacewar, then shame on 'em!
Yes. That's effectively my take on it. :-)
Charles Richmond
>
> Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Depends for whom they work. Some places want you 24/7 and
> >> wonder why you're partially dead. :)
> >>
> > As it said once in Dilbert (the comic strip):
> >
> > "Having a personal life is like stealing from the company."
> >
>
> I'm reminded of the lovely line from the Clive James/Pete Atkin song
> "Session Man's Blues": "They want me to work on the afternoon after I'm
> dead".
>
excuse for *not* coming into work, unless you are the one who
died. Then you have to give two weeks notice."
jmfb...@aol.com
"Geoffrey G. Rochat" <777ge...@777pkworks777.777com777> wrote:
>running
>> > on a PDP-1.
>>
>> Yeah, it looked like that, didn't it.
>>
>> Now, think about it a little. How much power does a PDP-1 use? How
>> many BTUs? How often would the hardware have broken down if they'd had
>> it running all the time, and what would the cost of all that been?
>> Since when did that museam have that kind of budget?
>>
>> They didn't actually run the PDP-1 itself except on rare occasions, as I
>> understand it. What was actually happening was that a Mac was driving
>> that display and those controllers at the Museam.
>
>Baloney. It ran.
<grin> Beautiful story.
We had good guards.
jchausler
Charles Richmond wrote:
> Haven't you ever seen the fake memo that says: "Death is *no*
> excuse for *not* coming into work, unless you are the one who
> died. Then you have to give two weeks notice."
This, of course, brings to mind the one which says
something like:
It has come to the attention of management
that people dying on the job are failing to
fall down. This makes is difficult to tell the
difference between them and the otherwise
normal movement of the staff. In the future,
will all employees dying on the job please
fall down.
Chris
AN GETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE
$$
Eugene Miya
>>> > running on a PDP-1.
It's at Moffett now. It's hoped to be on display eventually in Mtn. View.
We had Slug Russell give a talk last year about it.
>>> Now, think about it a little. How much power does a PDP-1 use?
Oh, I can find out how much the configuration runs. Not much compared
to other machines.
>>> How many BTUs? How often would the hardware have broken down if they'd had
>>> it running all the time, and what would the cost of all that been?
Boy you sound like a humanist historian.
Look but don't touch.
>>> Since when did that museam have that kind of budget?
That's the difference between engineers and historians.
Never yield the hand on imperative.
"It is important for a Museum to have things which run."
--John PIerce
philicorda
"Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever> wrote in message
news:3e62e8bf$0$11663$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Aye.
The mame vector driver does a decent job with open GL and a high res screen.
You can mess around with intensity, flicker, beam width and transucency
parameters to get it looking pretty authentic. I think it emulates phosphor
decay as well.
It supports the cabinet space wars, but not the original pdp version.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
Eugene Miya <eug...@cse.ucsc.edu> wrote in message
news:3e640726$1...@news.ucsc.edu...
> >>> > For years the Boston Computer Museum had SpaceWar on public display,
> >>> > running on a PDP-1.
>
> It's at Moffett now. It's hoped to be on display eventually in Mtn. View.
>
> We had Slug Russell give a talk last year about it.
I don't want you to think I'm too pushy or anything (<large toothy grin>),
but I *do* have a more-than-just-a-little proprietary feeling toward that
PDP-1.
Circa 1976, the MIT Electronics Research Society, an anarchical group of
mostly Course 6 (that's Electrical Engineering to the lay world) students
hold up in room 20B119 of the lost-and-lamented Building 20, grabbed the
PDP-1 from MIT's Surplus Property Office, where is sat after having been
decommissioned from Building 26. We grabbed it to keep Bertha, our beloved
PDP-7, company. What we got was the 6-rack system and a huge MIT home-brew
four-port core memory rack. The four ports were intended to be connected to
the PDP-1, to a PDP-7 for I/O support, one port was spare, and the fourth
port was to be tied to a massive RAMDAC fixed-head drum, IIRC some 3' in
diameter and about 6' long. We declined to get the drum because we realized
it had spun at 3600 RPM on the same bearings since circa 1963 without
external lubrication, and we didn't want to find out what would happen if
the bearings seized. (After all, Building 20 was a "temporary" barracks
thrown up to house the Rad Labs during WWII, and the interior walls were
only Masonite. Not much defense against shrapnel and an awful lot of
angular momentum.) We just used the PDP-1 port on the memory, and our mass
storage was the array of Microtape (as DECtape was originally called) on the
PDP-1. (Microtape drives, BTW, allowed one to control the feed and takeup
drive motors of each of the drives individually, and one could do all sorts
of interesting, if useless, things by looping a single tape through and
around the heads and idled tape spools of several drives, powering just the
motors at the ends.) We had all sorts of glorious plans to tie in the PDP-7
and run a multi-processor Spacewar (the -1 had a Type 30 display, the -7 had
a 340 display processor), but we never got around to it. But we did get the
PDP-5 we acquired at about the same time to run.
The four-port memory rack was a mass of wire wrap, and off one wire wrap pin
was a length of hookup wire, curled into a helix, with a toe-tag tied on the
end that said "DO NOT REMOVE!" For once we actually followed instructions,
and left the thing on there. We figured that it might have been one of
those "Do Not Remove Under Penalty Of Law" things that you see sewn into
mattresses or something. (Hey, this was back in the days of Watergate and
J. Edgar. *Anything* was possible, and a good supply of paranoia was a
healthy thing to have, particularly if you were a long-haired college
student. We realized it was best to never meddle unnecessarily in the
affairs of dragons, for we were crunchy and good with ketchup.) We did some
investigating, and discovered the wire had a definite purpose. It seems
that the memory, designed by a cabal of grad students, used a 4-state
asynchronous arbiter, and it was a devil to debug; the thing kept going
metastable. Until one day, when somebody noticed that if a 'scope probe
were clipped onto this point the metastability would go away. Apparently
the 'scope probe added just enough loading to unbalance the
too-well-balanced arbiter. But since probes for Tek 535 'scopes were
expensive, somebody had the bright idea of making a 'scope probe emulator
out of a piece of hookup wire, and that did the trick.
The 6-rack system we got had been under the auspices of Prof. Jack Dennis,
and to him this was a research machine. So the thing had been hacked to the
point were is had in it everything from the original PNP germanium System
Modules, featuring Diode-Capacitor-Diode (DCD) logic, to Schottky TTL. The
original PDP-1 front panel still operated, but other than providing a PTR:
to boot from was there mainly for nostalgia. Opening the door to the first
rack behind the original front panel revealed the "real" front panel, which
was a full 6' rack worth of switches, dials and indicators, both
incandescent and LEDs. Talk about blinkenlights, it was GORGEOUS. At the
bottom of that were, IIRC, some four mil-spec circular connectors that
trailed off on long, thick cables to what looked like button boxes. These
were auxiliary front panels. It seems that Jack had hacked this thing so
that it behaved like at least five virtual computers, and these were front
panels for subsidiary virtual machines. It was the most bizarre
amalgamation of digital circuitry and weird software I've ever seen in my
entire life, and that includes the time I wrote banking code for Citibank in
assembler on IBM Series/1s.
That being said, I have a bit of a bone to pick with The Computer Museum.
(I love the irony of that name. As though there's only one!) The PDP-1 as
we got it was not what you might call "well documented." When MITERS traded
the thing back to DEC for rights to pick through DEC's salvage bin (Hey, we
were young! What did we know? But we did manage to scrounge enough parts
to build the fourth most powerful computing center on campus, rivaling that
of the Civil/Mechanical Engineering Joint Computer Facility. Which really
pissed them off, 'cause they had to *pay* for their stuff...), DEC unhacked
the thing back to nearly pristine state, which is how it was presented at
the Boston Computer Museum. And I know the machine was running there. But
the machine is not running, nor is it runnable, presently. And that should
not be. It was in fine shape when it moved out there. Indeed, when MITERS
acquired the massively-hacked, undocumented machine as a very large
collection of pieces, over the course of a couple of weeks a fellow named
David Feldsenthal, a perennial Freshman who was the only person I know to
flunk out of MIT more times than I did, put the thing back together largely
on his own. Now, I grant you Dave was a genius. (And Dave, if you're
reading this, you're welcome. Get in touch, guy. It's been awhile.) And I
grant you that the circuitry was no doubt rather "forgiving" of Dave's
ministrations, but still and all he pulled it off with aplomb.
So how come you guys ain't got the thing up and running Spacewar? You've
only had the thing for years! If you need the dox for reference, they're
all up on Al Kossow's website. That's a heckovalot more help than Dave had.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
Vice President, Rhode Island Computer Museum (www.osfn.org/ricm)
Member, RetroComputing Society of Rhode Island (www.osfn.org/rcs)
Ross Simpson
> > Still Geoffrey brought up a very good point about emulating those
machines
> > & that is you can't emulate the way the original screen operated.
> Aye.
> The mame vector driver does a decent job with open GL and a high res
screen.
> You can mess around with intensity, flicker, beam width and transucency
> parameters to get it looking pretty authentic. I think it emulates
phosphor
> decay as well.
> It supports the cabinet space wars, but not the original pdp version.
Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running Spacewars!?
Perhaps when it can run a few other programs I'll take a look. Surely the
writers of this emulator have written this emulator to only play Spacewars!
Ross.
philicorda
> Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running Spacewars!?
Well, you can shoot things. It's more fun than running LISP. :)
It would be nice to emulate it more fully, as you say, but doing the tape
punch/reader, mag tape, control panel etc is a bit tricky.
Eugene Miya
Geoffrey G. Rochat <777ge...@777pkworks777.777com777> wrote:
None taken.
>but I *do* have a more-than-just-a-little proprietary feeling toward that
>PDP-1.
....
>So how come you guys ain't got the thing up and running Spacewar? You've
>only had the thing for years! If you need the dox for reference, they're
>all up on Al Kossow's website. That's a heckovalot more help than Dave had.
Several reasons.
1) It's not yet in its permanent home. Right now, this is most important.
2) Priorities 1, Whereas the Museum got an IBM 1620 running again, there
are factions between preservation vs. sample function. We have these debates
over other significant artifacts: Xerox Altos, the Enigma machine, etc.
The 1620 happened because it had a serious, fanatic group of IBMers.
How often it runs is pretty infrequent.
3) Priorities 2, take the same list, Alto, Enigma, and internally
prioritize that list.
Howard S Shubs
eug...@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote:
> >>> How many BTUs? How often would the hardware have broken down if they'd
> >>> had
> >>> it running all the time, and what would the cost of all that been?
>
> Boy you sound like a humanist historian.
> Look but don't touch.
Not my intention. Read what I said, rather than what you're implying.
Ross Simpson
> > Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running Spacewars!?
> Well, you can shoot things. It's more fun than running LISP. :)
Careful, the creator of LISP maybe reading this. Naturally, I haven't used
LISP, so cannot base an opinion on it.
> It would be nice to emulate it more fully, as you say, but doing the tape
> punch/reader, mag tape, control panel etc is a bit tricky.
Well it didn't stop someone writing an EDSAC emulator. That's older again,
so I guess the same sort of readers are used to load in a program?
I'm not particular sceptical about how accurate the emulation is in terms of
readers or hardware accessories (as long as some sort of emulation can be
done of it). The Screen seems to be more important (particularly if it can
be done). The programs could just be a file on the system. But it's a bit
disappointing that someone has written a PDP-1 emulator which doesn't
support all the software written for the original machine. Hopefully,
they'll make sure some improvements are made for it.
Ross.
Derek Peschel
> curiosity I was wonderning which language it would have used. The book also
> talks about a few other games which were written for it (Mouse-in-a-Maze
> being one), however would anyone know how many & was this machine mostly
> used as a games machine or could it used some serious applications?
The Mouse in the Maze program was written for the TX-0, and I don't think
it was ever ported to the PDP-1. The TX-0 was created at MIT in 1958
to test a 64K-word transistorized core memory. I wouldn't be surprised
if the DEC people used ideas from the TX-0 instruction set to create
the PDP-1 instruction set, but they really aren't the same.
There are other games for the PDP-1, though I don't know of any besides
Spacewar that use the CRT. I've seen listings for solitaire (with cards,
not pegs) and Jotto (which I think is like Mastermind but you have to guess
a five-letter word instead of four colors). And some of the games that
were popular at the time were ported. See David Ahl's _BASIC Computer Games_
books for the kind I mean -- Hunt the Wumpus, 3-D tic-tac-toe, etc.
Those are just examples; I don't remember which ones really were ported.
All the non-CRT games use a typewriter connected to the computer, which
types about ten characters a second.
Most programs were written in machine language. The stock PDP-1 only had
4K words of memory and it would be hard to fit another language in. There is
a LISP interpreter that runs in 4K, and LISP would be great for certain
types of games, but I don't know of an actual example. There is also a
FORTRAN compiler that would be good for porting the BASIC games. I doubt
it runs in 4K though.
MIT only had a few PDP-1s, max, and lots of people wanted to use them,
so by definition they had as many uses as people wanted. The stories
you hear are mostly about the programmers who wanted to push the machine
to its limits in any way they could. (Writing games counts as pushing the
machine to its limits, but so does writing a word processor, operating
system, or FORTRAN. They even changed the hardware when they thought
that would be useful.) But other people used the machine to do
calculations and only needed to know about their area of expertise.
I don't know how things were at other PDP-1 sites, but I imagine they
were similar. It would be silly to spend all that money just to play games,
or even to write them (who would you sell them to?), but on the other hand
there was no hourly or monthly fee, so it would be natural to do some
game playing.
> One last thing. How did the games written for this machine compare with the
> arcade type written (like Space Invaders in 1978)? Only reason I ask it is
> because of some of varations of SpaceWar sound quite impressive.
1978 is about twenty years after the PDP-1 came out. Computer technology
changed a great deal in that time, and costs went down, so things that
weren't practical (like having a bit-mapped screen) became practical.
Video-game writers also have different goals than research scientists,
so the programs will be different.
Some URLs:
http://simh.traiing-edge.com/
(a PDP-1 emulator, includes the LISP interpreter, no CRT)
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/spacewar/
(a Java PDP-1 emulator set up to play Spacewar)
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/spacewar/sources/
(the sources for Spacewar, a cross-assembler, and the emulator)
http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/munch.html
(emulates the Munching Squares "eye candy" program, tries to
give you a good idea of what the real CRT looks like)
-- Derek
Lars Brinkhoff
> The TX-0 was created at MIT
Lincoln Lab, to be precise, I think.
--
Lars Brinkhoff, Services for Unix, Linux, GCC, PDP-10, HTTP
Brinkhoff Consulting http://www.brinkhoff.se/
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
"Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever> writes:
> Careful, the creator of LISP maybe reading this. Naturally, I
> haven't used LISP, so cannot base an opinion on it.
some amount of drift:
http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-Vera.html
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#60
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Internet trivia 20th anv http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm
Roland Hutchinson
>> Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running
>> Spacewars!?
>
> Well, you can shoot things. It's more fun than running LISP. :)
Surely someone, somewhere, is coding up Spacewar in Common Lisp even as
we speak...
...and if not, I darned well want to know the reason why not!
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my_sp...@eudoramail.com is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Ross Simpson
> > curiosity I was wonderning which language it would have used. The book
also
> > talks about a few other games which were written for it (Mouse-in-a-Maze
> > being one), however would anyone know how many & was this machine mostly
> > used as a games machine or could it used some serious applications?
>
> The Mouse in the Maze program was written for the TX-0, and I don't think
> it was ever ported to the PDP-1. The TX-0 was created at MIT in 1958
> to test a 64K-word transistorized core memory. I wouldn't be surprised
> if the DEC people used ideas from the TX-0 instruction set to create
> the PDP-1 instruction set, but they really aren't the same.
Ah okay. Yes I probably misinterpreted what the book states. Which is that
'Mouse-in-a-Maze, Spacewar! & other games around that period' were all
public domain games.
However the site I printed some information on about the TX-0, PDP-1 &
Spacewar! described how the hackers took programs which ran on the TX-0 to
the PDP-1. I don't think I would have misinterpreted that, however on the
same note Mouse-in-a-Maze wasn't described as being one (if I recally
correctly).
> There are other games for the PDP-1, though I don't know of any besides
> Spacewar that use the CRT. I've seen listings for solitaire (with cards,
> not pegs) and Jotto (which I think is like Mastermind but you have to
guess
> a five-letter word instead of four colors). And some of the games that
> were popular at the time were ported. See David Ahl's _BASIC Computer
Games_
> books for the kind I mean -- Hunt the Wumpus, 3-D tic-tac-toe, etc.
> Those are just examples; I don't remember which ones really were ported.
Well BASIC was quite made when the PDP-1 came out, but yeah I get the idea!
:-)
> All the non-CRT games use a typewriter connected to the computer, which
> types about ten characters a second.
The ones with 'END TRANSMISSION' on the end? Or was it 'DISENGAGE'? (I've
watched too many old movies with computers in).
Ross.
Charles Richmond
>
> philicorda wrote:
>
> >> Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running
> >> Spacewars!?
> >
> > Well, you can shoot things. It's more fun than running LISP. :)
>
> Surely someone, somewhere, is coding up Spacewar in Common Lisp even as
> we speak...
>
> ...and if not, I darned well want to know the reason why not!
>
by Alan Kay...does that count??? (Well, some of the code was
there...I did *not* try to run it.)
Ross Simpson
> > >> Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running
> > >> Spacewars!?
> > >
> > > Well, you can shoot things. It's more fun than running LISP. :)
> >
> > Surely someone, somewhere, is coding up Spacewar in Common Lisp even as
> > we speak...
> >
> > ...and if not, I darned well want to know the reason why not!
> >
> Somewhere on the web, I saw a version of Spacewar! coded in Logo
> by Alan Kay...does that count??? (Well, some of the code was
> there...I did *not* try to run it.)
Well dare I say that Logo isn't quite like Lisp. But then I've used Logo,
which 'can' be used for more than just Turtle Drawning. All I know about
Lisp is, it's some language used for Artifical Intelligence Programming. I'd
don't know if it compares to other languages of the time like Algol 60.
Ross.
Brian Inglis
dpes...@eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) wrote:
>"Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever> wrote in message news:<3e601025$0$27765$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au>...
>
>> curiosity I was wonderning which language it would have used. The book also
>> talks about a few other games which were written for it (Mouse-in-a-Maze
>> being one), however would anyone know how many & was this machine mostly
>> used as a games machine or could it used some serious applications?
>
>Most programs were written in machine language. The stock PDP-1 only had
>4K words of memory and it would be hard to fit another language in. There is
>a LISP interpreter that runs in 4K, and LISP would be great for certain
>types of games, but I don't know of an actual example. There is also a
>FORTRAN compiler that would be good for porting the BASIC games. I doubt
>it runs in 4K though.
A 4KW ForTran compiler was still available on the descendent
(1->9->15) PDP-15, although normally the standard 8KW compiler
was used. Dropped support for parsing some of the more esoteric
I/O features, and may have had limits on expression complexity.
I listed the source and took it home for a read, to get a better
understanding of assembler on that machine and how to write tight
code.
IIRC it compressed 5/7 ASCII identifiers into RAD50 and compared
to a length indexed RAD50 keyword table; the symbol table entry
was three words per simple variable: two words for 6 char RAD50
identifier, the extra four bits encoded the data type, and a one
word address; can't remember what it did for array dimensions:
maybe an extra table entry?; generated inline code for control
flow, integer and floating ops, or called the RTS for I/O.
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
--
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply
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ab...@ibsystems.com u...@ftc.gov spam traps
Charles Richmond
and "rest" functions built in...
Ross Simpson
> > > Somewhere on the web, I saw a version of Spacewar! coded in Logo
> > > by Alan Kay...does that count??? (Well, some of the code was
> > > there...I did *not* try to run it.)
> > Well dare I say that Logo isn't quite like Lisp. But then I've used
Logo,
> > which 'can' be used for more than just Turtle Drawning. All I know about
> > Lisp is, it's some language used for Artifical Intelligence Programming.
I'd
> > don't know if it compares to other languages of the time like Algol 60.
> IIRC, you can do some list processing with LOGO...it has "first"
> and "rest" functions built in...
Yes, I forgot to point out that it's been a while since I've used LOGO, so I
merely relying on memory. The Turtle Graphics is merely a small portion to
using Logo, a version I used for the Apple IIe based machines may also have
some differences from the earlier Logos. One of the few commands took you
to some sort of commmand line screen, where lots of instructions could be
written for use as a Logo Program.
Ross.
Roland Hutchinson
> Ross Simpson wrote:
>>
>> "Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message...
>>
>> > > >> Fair enough then. But what's this caper about only running
>> > > >> Spacewars!?
>> > > >
>> > > > Well, you can shoot things. It's more fun than running LISP. :)
>> > >
>> > > Surely someone, somewhere, is coding up Spacewar in Common Lisp
>> > > even as we speak...
>> > >
>> > > ...and if not, I darned well want to know the reason why not!
>> > >
>> > Somewhere on the web, I saw a version of Spacewar! coded in Logo
>> > by Alan Kay...does that count??? (Well, some of the code was
>> > there...I did *not* try to run it.)
>>
>> Well dare I say that Logo isn't quite like Lisp. But then I've used
>> Logo, which 'can' be used for more than just Turtle Drawning. All I
>> know about Lisp is, it's some language used for Artifical
>> Intelligence Programming. I'd don't know if it compares to other
>> languages of the time like Algol 60.
>>
> IIRC, you can do some list processing with LOGO...it has "first"
> and "rest" functions built in...
Of course you can do list processing in Logo. It's fundamental to the
language.
Contrary to popular superstition, Logo is not "Turtles all the way
down."
Logo is a great deal like Lisp in spirit, in its built-in data types
(lists, strings, numbers, atoms), and in the kind of thinking that it
encourages in learners (to say nothing of the internal details of its
implementation). It's basically a simplified dialect of Lisp with
different syntax (no parentheses) and kid-friendly names for the
builtin functions (first and butfirst rather than car and cdr, for
example).
Although the syntax is different from Lisp's (Logo's is much closer to
being Algol-like), it's still simple and uniform, so that the learner
doesn't have to commit to memory a bunch of completely arbitrary rules
for different "statement types" in order to start using and
understanding the language.
The turtles are, in a sense, a distraction from the language itself.
You could of course give kiddies ANY language to let them play with
turtles. The pedagogical advantage of using Logo is that the language
is deliberately designed not to get in the way of thinking about the
problem domain, whether that domain is getting turtles to walk around
making polygons, understanding recursive functions, automatically
generating haiku, or writing a Lisp interpreter.
Ross Simpson
"Roland Hutchinson" <my_sp...@eudoramail.com> wrote in message...
For a game like Spacewar! the facilities which Logo provides for turtle
drawing would be of benefit. I'd be more amazed if someone wrote such a game
in languages such as early COBOL or FORTRAN. By the same token, FORTRAN
maybe more capable of accomplishing this.
Ross.
Derek Peschel
> Yes, I forgot to point out that it's been a while since I've used LOGO, so I
> merely relying on memory. The Turtle Graphics is merely a small portion to
> using Logo, a version I used for the Apple IIe based machines may also have
> some differences from the earlier Logos. One of the few commands took you
> to some sort of commmand line screen, where lots of instructions could be
> written for use as a Logo Program.
You're probably thinking of the "TO" command. Procedure definitions
take the form
TO foo
... lines ...
END
and typing the "TO foo" part fires up a full-screen editor. In the
case of Terrapin Logo on the Apple, which was written by MIT people,
the editor uses a tiny subset of EMACS' command keys!
Yes, of course there's a syntax for declaring arguments -- I think it's
TO foo :arg1 :arg2...
but I never did any serious Logo programming.
Terrapin runs on the ][+ as well as the //e (and doesn't take advantage
of the //e's features). Also, Apple released Apple Logo which does take
advantage of lowercase, the Open- and Solid-Apple keys, etc.
It's wrong to say there are a few commands -- you can do about the same
things outside a procedure as inside, and you can run DOS commands
from the prompt as well. In that sense Logo is like LISP with its
read-eval-print loop.
Incidentally, getting back to the thread topic, Logo was written on the
PDP-1. There were also real turtle robots (I remmber the Apple being
able to control them) that would roll around on, and draw on, large pieces
of paper on the floor.
-- Derek
Nico de Jong
news:6b26c83b.03030...@posting.google.com...
> You're probably thinking of the "TO" command. Procedure definitions
> take the form
>
> TO foo
> ... lines ...
> END
The word TO reminds me of an error I once made.
I had 7 counters, one for each weekday. However, as I am rather lazy, I
didnt want to write the names in full, so I wrote (in COBOL)
01 record
02 MA (monday)
02 TI (tuesday)
02 ON
02 TO (thursday)
02 FR
....
It took me half a day to find the error. They eye only sees what it wants to
see, obviously.
A colleague in Philips (no Chris, he didnt do the 6000, he was a 4000 man !)
He had to devise a series of names for backups. He had a set for use mondays
and wednesday, tuesdays and thursdays, and one for friday. He called them
MAO, TITO and FRED, where FREd means Fredag = friday.
It was a nice "coincidence", that FRED translates into PEACE. This was
during the days where Chairmain Mao and Tito were still in power
Nico
Chris Hedley
> A colleague in Philips (no Chris, he didnt do the 6000, he was a 4000 man !)
I quite liked the 4000s, based on what I saw. Good, nicely eccentric
machines; shame they're not more widely known as they'd probably be a
good folklore topic in their own right.
Chris.
--
"If the world was an orange it would be like much too small, y'know?" Neil, '84
Currently playing: Sing Sing - "The Joy Of Sing Sing" (again)
http://www.chrishedley.com My stuff, including genealogy, other things, etc
Ross Simpson
> > Yes, I forgot to point out that it's been a while since I've used LOGO,
so I
> > merely relying on memory. The Turtle Graphics is merely a small portion
to
> > using Logo, a version I used for the Apple IIe based machines may also
have
> > some differences from the earlier Logos. One of the few commands took
you
> > to some sort of commmand line screen, where lots of instructions could
be
> > written for use as a Logo Program.
>
> You're probably thinking of the "TO" command. Procedure definitions
> take the form
>
> TO foo
> ... lines ...
> END
Yeah that's the one I was thinking of. Yes thinking of it now, it's
certainally is like a procedure.
> and typing the "TO foo" part fires up a full-screen editor. In the
> case of Terrapin Logo on the Apple, which was written by MIT people,
> the editor uses a tiny subset of EMACS' command keys!
ah okay.
> Yes, of course there's a syntax for declaring arguments -- I think it's
>
> TO foo :arg1 :arg2...
>
> but I never did any serious Logo programming.
Neither did I to be honest! ;-)
> Terrapin runs on the ][+ as well as the file://e (and doesn't take
advantage
> of the file://e's features). Also, Apple released Apple Logo which does
take
> advantage of lowercase, the Open- and Solid-Apple keys, etc.
>
> It's wrong to say there are a few commands -- you can do about the same
> things outside a procedure as inside, and you can run DOS commands
> from the prompt as well. In that sense Logo is like LISP with its
> read-eval-print loop.
Well yeah. An language which only supports graphics programming isn't much
of a language.
> Incidentally, getting back to the thread topic, Logo was written on the
> PDP-1. There were also real turtle robots (I remmber the Apple being
> able to control them) that would roll around on, and draw on, large pieces
> of paper on the floor.
Well that's interesting.
Ross.
Bill Leary
PDP-1. As it happens I live near Boston and I'd seen it running on the
machine at the Computer Museum (thought I think I saw it before it was moved
to TCM). The computer version put up the black circle on a grey background
and played Spacewar in a manner which looked, as best I could recall, very
much like the one seen on the actual machine, including phosphor decay and
so forth.
When the subject came up in this thread, I'd intended to find it and post
that I had it. Well, I can't find it on any of my backups or archives.
Does anyone else remember this thing? It required an EGA display and a '286
and ran under MS or PC-DOS. It used some keys on the left side of the
keyboard to emulate one of the controllers, and keys on the right for the
other.
- Bill
Bernie Cosell
} dpes...@eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) writes:
} > The TX-0 was created at MIT
}
} Lincoln Lab, to be precise, I think.
Are you sure? I thought that Lincoln did the TX-2 and the TX-0 was done at
MIT. [I don't know if there was a TX-1... was there?]
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
ber...@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
Lars Brinkhoff
> Lars Brinkhoff <lars...@nocrew.org> wrote:
> } dpes...@eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) writes:
> } > The TX-0 was created at MIT
> } Lincoln Lab, to be precise, I think.
> Are you sure? I thought that Lincoln did the TX-2 and the TX-0 was
> done at MIT. [I don't know if there was a TX-1... was there?]
No, I'm not sure. I got that that from chapter 1 of Steven Levy's
book Hackers.
Neil Franklin
> Bernie Cosell <ber...@fantasyfarm.com> writes:
> > Lars Brinkhoff <lars...@nocrew.org> wrote:
> > } dpes...@eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) writes:
> > } > The TX-0 was created at MIT
> > } Lincoln Lab, to be precise, I think.
> > Are you sure? I thought that Lincoln did the TX-2 and the TX-0 was
> > done at MIT. [I don't know if there was a TX-1... was there?]
>
> No, I'm not sure. I got that that from chapter 1 of Steven Levy's
> book Hackers.
According to Wesley A Clark in [1] p355ff, TX-0 and TX-2 were made by
the same (ex Whirlwind and MTC) team, at Lincoln Lab.
[1] Adele Goldberg (ed), A History of Personal Workstations
ACM Press, 1988, ISBN 0-201-11259-0
Conference proceedings of the same named conference.
Details on PDPs, Whirlwind, Arpanet, Alto, Ethernet, Smalltalk, LINC.
Lots of good stuff, highly recommended.
--
Neil Franklin, ne...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Programmer, Archer, Blacksmith
- hardware runs the world, software controls the hardware
code generates the software, have you coded today?
Charles Richmond
>
> Lars Brinkhoff <lars...@nocrew.org> wrote:
>
> } dpes...@eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) writes:
> } > The TX-0 was created at MIT
> }
> } Lincoln Lab, to be precise, I think.
>
> Are you sure? I thought that Lincoln did the TX-2 and the TX-0 was done at
> MIT. [I don't know if there was a TX-1... was there?]
>
TX-0 to test the TX-2. After the testing was over, the
TX-0 was sent to MIT on "long term loan" with *no* return
date specified.
Derek Peschel
> } > The TX-0 was created at MIT
> }
> } Lincoln Lab, to be precise, I think.
>
> Are you sure? I thought that Lincoln did the TX-2 and the TX-0 was done at
> MIT. [I don't know if there was a TX-1... was there?]
Lars is right. I was sloppy, using "MIT" to mean "the MIT community".
I visited Bob Saunders on February 9th to borrow some listings, and he
gave me a summarized history. It was created at Lincoln to test the 64K
core memory they had built. BTW although the core memory had transistor
controller circuits, the TX-0 itself used tubes.
The computer, but not the memory, was donated to MIT proper. Bob didn't
say why they were separated. It could have happened while the computer
was still at LL. The 64K module was replaced with 4K (I don't know what
form).
Most of Lincoln's programs became useless, so the MIT people began
writing a new set. They also changed the opcode length from 2 bits to 5
(decoding only six instructions though). They they added more decoding
logic (bringing the total to 20 instructions) and added an index register.
By the end of its lifetime, the TX-0 had 8K and magnetic tape drives.
Watch Al Kossow's site for scans of the relevant memos.
One of the programs MIT wote (Bob thought Tom Stockham) is Utility Tape 3,
or UT-3, which became MicroFlit, which was ported to the PDP-1 and renamed
DDT. I'm still trying to find out about regular Flit. It was too big with
only 4K. There's another set of programs for debugging and control,
called HARK and EXPEDITE, which had no descendants. The MIT library still
has a paper describing HARK and EXPEDITE.
No Bernie, I (and more importantly Bob) never heard of a TX-1 either.
The TX-2 CPU has a totally different organization than the TX-0. Al already
has part of the TX-2 programmer's guide.
-- Derek
none Carl Lowenstein
Geoffrey G. Rochat <777ge...@777pkworks777.777com777> wrote:
>site, in the PDP-1 Handbook. Details on the PDP-7's 340 Graphics Processor,
>specifically, are not available (And if anyone has the information, please
>get it to Al!), but the 339 Graphics Processor used on the PDP-9, a
>re-packaged PDP-7, are available on Al's site in the PDP-9 folder. I am at
>a loss to find a similar reference to raster-scanning; I used to have an
>excellent book in my well-ordered library, a pamphlet published by a company
>in Westford, MA, that made raster-scanned systems, but since I can't
>remember the name of the company I appear to have lost the information in
>alphabetical order. You might try Don Lancaster's "The TV Typewriter" book.
>For television technology in general, there is no better place to start than
>Grob's "Basic Television."
It's taken me a week or more to recall the name, but were you perhaps
thinking of Conrac as a raster-scan monitor manufacturer?
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clow...@ucsd.edu
Geoffrey G. Rochat
> thinking of Conrac as a raster-scan monitor manufacturer?
No, the company I was thinking of was Raster Technology. They made complete
display system that included a monitor. AFAIK, Conrac made just the
monitors themselves. I designed 'em into systems all the time when I worked
in the TV broadcast business.
Al Kossow
>>excellent book in my well-ordered library, a pamphlet published by a company
>>in Westford, MA, that made raster-scanned systems, but since I can't
>>remember the name of the company I appear to have lost the information in
>>alphabetical order.
> It's taken me a week or more to recall the name, but were you perhaps
> thinking of Conrac as a raster-scan monitor manufacturer?
Conrac published a paperback called "The Raster Graphics Handbook"
guess I should add it to the 'to be scanned' pile.
Geoffrey G. Rochat
Al Kossow <a...@spies.com> wrote in message news:b58eeu$jhh$1...@spies.com...
Al and Carl Lowenstein, I stand corrected. (Well, sit actually. But you
get the idea...) Yes, it was the Raster Graphics Handbook from Conrac I
remember, but it was also Raster Technologies the company I was thinking of.
I suppose, then, it's reasonable to conclude Conrac made more than just the
monitors themselves. After awhile one's bran..., er, brin..., ah, bren...,
<sigh> one's cerebral cortex shrinks, leaving a lot more room inside the
skull for dimly-remembered old factoids to come loose and fly off on
ballistic trajectories, to then collide, merge and form false associations.
Yes, Al, you should scan "The Raster Graphics Handbook" too. Please.
jchausler
"Geoffrey G. Rochat" wrote:
> > It's taken me a week or more to recall the name, but were you perhaps
> > thinking of Conrac as a raster-scan monitor manufacturer?
They were the primary supplier of monitors for
raster displays (usually driven by Aydin Controls
text based units) in the 70's and early 80's used
in most "process control" systems. I used them
in the railroad industry and noticed that the Space
Shuttle simulators outside Houston (in 81) had
many Aydins and Conrac's in them.
> No, the company I was thinking of was Raster Technology. They made complete
> display system that included a monitor. AFAIK, Conrac made just the
> monitors themselves. I designed 'em into systems all the time when I worked
> in the TV broadcast business.
I acquired one of these in the mid 80's as a
possible replacement for the Aydin/Conrac
stuff we had been supplying up to that time.
We built a really spiffy high density display
(1280x1024) based on it and then I discovered
Sun workstations (initially a 3/110) which for
just a little more money could do a whole lot
more and Raster Technology was "history".
Chris
AN GETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE
$$
Douglas H. Quebbeman
news:3E78B3AA...@earthlink.net...
>
>
> "Geoffrey G. Rochat" wrote:
>
> > > It's taken me a week or more to recall the name, but were you perhaps
> > > thinking of Conrac as a raster-scan monitor manufacturer?
>
> They were the primary supplier of monitors for
> raster displays (usually driven by Aydin Controls
> text based units) in the 70's and early 80's used
> in most "process control" systems. I used them
> in the railroad industry and noticed that the Space
> Shuttle simulators outside Houston (in 81) had
> many Aydins and Conrac's in them.
Television studios also used Conrac monitors, in
the 60s, up until maybe the early 70s, maybe later
for some poorer stations...
I've got two of the damned things, begging to be
boat anchors, but I've got no bass boat!
Joe Morris
>Television studios also used Conrac monitors, in
>the 60s, up until maybe the early 70s, maybe later
>for some poorer stations...
>I've got two of the damned things, begging to be
>boat anchors, but I've got no bass boat!
The TV station I worked for as an engineer used Conrac monitors for
the main studio control room. We (the engineers) hated the damned
things; although everybody swore that it was a spontaneous event, one
of the monitors caught fire and much to everybody's pleasure, destroyed
the entire monitor row.
The biggest disappointment of the incident was that the fire failed
to destroy the control chassis for the iconoscope camera used for the
slide chain, even though it was sitting on its side directly under
the shelf of burning monitors. I doubt that anyone who's ever worked
with an iconoscope needs to ask why we wanted it to go away.
Joe Morris