I have finished my 2:3 Scale Type 30 Reproduction

[MICHAEL GARDI]

All of the build files as well as assembly instructions and a BOM have been posted to my Type 30 project page on Hackaday.

I want to take a little while now to jump into the software side of things and learn to do some PDP-1 programming. When I get my Console kit I will look into doing a Type 30 reproduction (perhaps a little smaller) that uses PCBs for the body so that it matches the aesthetic of the PiDP-1.

Mike

[Oscar Vermeulen]

Great! Just going through the Hackaday page for the details now.

[Bryce Jeannotte]

Mike, the project turned out great!

[MICHAEL GARDI]

Hey. Just noticed this nice writeup over on hackster.io: 

https://www.hackster.io/news/michael-gardi-s-precision-crt-type-30-replica-goes-great-with-a-pidp-1-2c3131291c7f

Gareth has covered a couple of my other projects and he always gets the facts and the story right. I especially liked the third paragraph where he describes the PDP-1 and how having an interactive CRT display led to innovations like Spacewar.

Mike  

[Randy Merkel]

OMG it's wonderful!

Requires a filament 3-D printer correct? Any thought about selling a parts kit?

[MICHAEL GARDI]

Sorry not thinking about kits at this time.

Mike

[Bill E]

I grabbed the .3mf files for printing. The logo.3mf file seems to be wonky. There are some very large objects that seem to be copies of smaller parts of the logo.

I cleaned them up. Here's the modified 3mf if you want it. I'm not totally clear on the colors for it. Your pics show blue background for the large Digital letters, but the photos I've seen of the real one seemed to have black letters on white. Hard to tell. Of course, very few people would ever know the difference.

Bill

[MICHAEL GARDI]

Hey Bill,

These are the two variants of the logo colors that I have seen. 

Are you thinking of printing the 2:3 scale? In actual fact the reproduction is actually closer to 3:4 scale as I learned when I got actual measurements from the CHM. Have you looks at the other two models that I made? I actually think that I prefer the 57% scale Type 30 which is almost the exact same scale as the PiDP-1 Console.

Mike 

[Bill E]

I'm planning on doing the large one just because I want it to be more visible from across the room, but I haven't completely decided yet. I'll probably print both and compare. As for the logos, as usual, nothing was ever done one way. I like the blue one myself.

Bill

[Ian Schofield]

Hi All,

 This is definitely a great idea. See link for video of the display that could be included.

 This is from an updated version if Simh at the moment using the same graphics as for the GT40.

 It also works on the Pi as well but you need 3840x2160 resolution to do it justice. The Pi 5 will do this.

 But, VNC really struggles with this so a dedicated monitor is a must.

 I would note that I have used and edited version of Masswerk's Logo as per the images in this thread. I will check with them

 for permission to use it. The rest of the artwork is from me.

 This video is from my PC at 5120x2160 scaled to 125%.

 It really does demonstrate that the graphics resolution in the good old days is only been reproducible on modern hardware quite recently.

 One other thing I would note which for those of us in a certain demographic is that black could only be seen with the lights out. Black and white TV was really grey and white!.

 The phosphor on the old CRTs reflected quite a bit of light and for the P7 phosphor emulated here, the screen was a very pale and dark yellow color due to reflection from the phosphor.

 This has been included in the simulation (difficult to see in this video).

 I have just received my kit (thanks to all in Panama). If the community thinks this is of interest, the PiDP1 software can be updated to include this as an optional component.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D1SI0q_ElU_hfbCAEzCMKp5qCGB48jbK/view?usp=sharing

Happy New Year, Ian.