COLOR HACK

[Lars Brinkhoff]

There is a "new" ITS program with display hacks for the color scope.  It's Michael Beeler's (of HAKMEM fame) COLOR HACK.  There are 20 separate display effects.  Once the program is loaded, you start one of those by typing an address in the range 62 to 105 and then $G.  The program checks wether it's running on a PDP-6 or 10, and if the latter it calls .IOTLSR to run under timesharing.

For example, if you type

$J COLOR

$L PDP10; COLOR HACK

105$G

You should see this:

https://youtu.be/6EQTX2aX3gA

More information here:

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/pull/1658

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Some of the hacks use switches as input. However, it's not the regular console switches, but the "device 420" switches. The program CONOs 40, so the Spacewar consoles and a bank of 36 switches (BIT SW'S below) can be used. The latter is not implemented in the emulator. If you have a PiDP-10, it's probably convenient to edit the program and replace all DATAI CSOPE with DATAI APR, and then you can use the console switches.

See https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/its-archives/blob/master/ailab/ITS_Hardware_Memo_6.pdf for information about device 420.