@@NuGanjaTron Originally I was on the production line in Wilsonville as a technician. I tested and repaired every board in 4051 and 4052. Later I worked my way into engineering. Eventually I moved to the logic-analyzer division and helped with the design of DAS9200 at Walker Rd.
@@barryhomes1 Neat! Can you fix my spare comatose MAS board? 😆 Btw, I diagnosed that board with a 7D01 logic analyser in my 7603 scope. That enabled me to grab the last successfully tested RAM address off the bus, and locate the bad chips. I ended up getting a spare MAS board (with a lot of patience) with working ROMs. Tek made incredible stuff all the way! Must've been a great place to work at.
I was hired into the research lab that designed this and others, including a raster scan color version the 4062. Good times at the Wilsonville lab. I was a software engineer there.
The first “personal” computer was the LINC, created at MIT’s Lincoln Labs. It was the first machine cheap enough (five-figure price tag) to be purchased on the say-so of a Head of Department, without needing to seek permission from Beancounter Central.
We had one of these in the attack center on a Polaris submarine in the late ‘70s which could’ve been used to calculate great circle sailing courses but in reality was used by the officers to play an artillery barrage game.
This computer was used to create the scanner displays on the 1978 show Battlestar Galactica. The images were drawn, then shot one frame at a time and played back to give the appearance of motion, which was not possible on computers of the time because they were just too slow.
I was good friends with the son of one of the designers, Cliff Moulton who was also one of the founders of Tektronix.I have always though that this was the first personal graphics computer. When we were kids, we played a 3D shooter game called "Klingon" on it that his father programmed for us. IMO that was likely the first 1st-person 3D shooter ever made for a personal computer ( think there was one even earlier on a mainframe).
Cliff worked for my father at one time at the Allis Chalmers High Voltage Research lab in Beaverton, Oregon. Cliff was a fanatic amateur radio freak. He was also the youngest electrical engineers to ever graduate from Oregon State University - 16 years old. I remember him when I was a kid. Totally impressed with his intellect.
It's weird how it can't erase a character from the screen, yet it is able to make the cursor flash. Wonder why they couldn't have adapted the logic that does that into a proper backspace character deletion routine.
Found this video after I bought an old book on scientific graphing with computers which includes code samples for the Tektronix, the description here of how it works is very useful! I've also found an online emulator, so can even try out the listings :) Seems you stopped this channel after only a handful of videos. That's a pity, you started out really well! Try and get back to it :)
I love these machines! So good to see someone showing them off. You are on point with your personal computer argument. I used them to program sheet metal parts and the whole experience was essentially the same as a PC, Apple 8 bit machines, both of which were capable 8 bit workstations back in the time. The Tek computer was not as widely known, and expensive, but very powerful as a scientific, or industrial control, prototyping machine. You've got a great specimen. Your tube is basically factory!! Lucky you.
The 4050 series is amazing tech for its day -- truly rare and unique artefacts. The engineering that went into these things is incredible, and the DSVT in action is really something to behold. But they do have hardware issues, which isn't helped by the fact that Tek often tended to use custom components, particularly in their scopes. As mentioned, the RAM and ROM typically fail and leave the system comatose. Replacing the ROM isn't straightforward as pin-compatible EPROMs are rare and too slow, and socket adapters don't fit due to limited clearance with the bottom of the case. Only the last revision (4052A) took standard 27xx series EPROMs. One thing I find a bit disappointing is the choice of BASIC as built-in language. Yes, it was the standard of the day for minis and early personal computers, but there were other, more performant languages, such as Forth for example (though possibly more relevant in the 80s). BASIC feels like a lowest-common-denominator choice to drive such (then) sophisticated hardware. On top of that, Tek BASIC is pretty non-standard and, apart from the extensions to support the hardware, rather simple. There is no support for multiple statements, for example. I have the 4052, which looks almost identical to the 4051, but has a completely different architecture and is significantly faster. It consists of a custom 16-bit extension of the 6800 -- that's _before_ the 68k! This is implemented using four AMD 2901 bitslice ALUs and a whole bunch of custom logic. The entire CPU is essentially made of up of a bunch of individual ICs, as it was done in the minis and mainframes of the day. The whole thing resides on 4 separate PCBs stacked back-to-back, similar to the assembly shown here. But the PCBs are much denser than in the 4051. It took me ~8 years (!) to obtain the schematics and spare ROMs/boards to revive my 4052. I imagine a similar effort went into this 4051 demo'd here. Congrats!
So hey, the screen can't clear what's already been stored on it unless it does a flash clear, right? How is the cursor blinking? I notice flashes when things are written to the display, but the cursor doesn't blink - are there two layers of phosphor or something like that? Also: You might want to consider a boom or lapel mic for when you're onscreen, or just run that section of audio through a compressor. Enjoyed the video and looking forward to more!
Thanks for the suggestion on the audio- i'll work thru it a bit. The tube doesn't refresh like a normal CRT, so there is no way to quickly add or remove elements from the display. To recap- In order to update the display to remove something, you must erase the whole thing (flood gun flash, and the blink you see). This is a good question; there were indeed storage tubes made with two layers- a static and dynamic layer where you could have refreshed content in a bright orange, and storage content in green, but this is not one of them- that came out on the 4052, as the CPU in the 4051 is probably not powerful enough to do refresh redraw of reasonable size objects in software while keeping up with other responsibilities. Anyway, in this model, the cursor is a hack- they put down the gun intensity far enough that it doesn't register as persistence, and as the area is small, they fire the gun there in software, refreshing it in a loop and blinking the area on and off. If it were a larger area, this wouldn't work- they'd need a different type of phosphor with more persistence, which is what they added in the multi layer write-thru displays. Anyway, CRT control on this system is entirely in software on the main CPU, and if you hang the CPU or run code that puts the gun and deflection out of spec, you can actually damage the screen thru arbitrary code execution. This is why Tek strongly encouraged end customers to write in BASIC...
Interesting, electrostatic deflection... I wonder what frame rate that could be compared to on a modern display if the tube was controlled by a modern processor. And while achieving essentially infinite resolution (for some possible definitions of 'resolution').
C'mon, CRTs are good for you, and this one's mesmerising to watch! 😉 The tape drive is mechanically quite solid and pretty simple. The capstan's idler ages remarkably well, and doesn't turn to goo -- I really wonder what formulation Tek used. The tapes themselves (standard QICs you can probably still get today) are another story; the rubber band in them often gives and tangles the tape during rewind. Elastibands are supposed to be a good substitute, but I've never gotten my hands on them here. Also, the band can fuse to the tape and peel off the oxide after years of storage without retensioning. Finally, oxide shed can build up on the head and give read errors, so it needs quite frequent cleaning. Basically these tapes are subject to the same breakdown as all magnetic media, and should be transferred ASAP. The 4052 makes this easy as it actually has a facility to dump tapes to the serial port! Good job, Tek! 👍
@@NuGanjaTron I hear the same thing happens with HP's desktop, one that looks like IBMs 5100. I meant that I'd be scared of just using it, don't want to break the screen or burn it in. But then it's not used, and that's a fate worse.
@@computeraidedworld1148 You mean the HP-85? That uses smaller DC100, and those are totally unreliable. None of those work anymore, and getting replacements is very difficult. In retrospect, it was a bad choice on behalf of HP. I think there is (was?) one manufacturer (Athana) for these, but the tape has a different coercivity which requires modifying the drive. I gave up on my HP-85's tape drive. 😐
Nice review video. I have written a simulator for the 4051 that runs on Windows and will do most of the common commands that people used. Send me a message if you want to try it. You find me via my Aurelian Design site which is easy to find. I also have a number of videos on here showing how to program the 4051 (Part 1 through Part 6 to date).
I worked on the manufacturing of the 4051 and 4052 back in 1978. You nailed it. Good Job. Barry :-)
Great job to you too, Barry! I have the 4052. Still amazing for it's day. What was your role at Tek?
@@NuGanjaTron Originally I was on the production line in Wilsonville as a technician. I tested and repaired every board in 4051 and 4052. Later I worked my way into engineering. Eventually I moved to the logic-analyzer division and helped with the design of DAS9200 at Walker Rd.
@@barryhomes1 Neat! Can you fix my spare comatose MAS board? 😆
Btw, I diagnosed that board with a 7D01 logic analyser in my 7603 scope. That enabled me to grab the last successfully tested RAM address off the bus, and locate the bad chips. I ended up getting a spare MAS board (with a lot of patience) with working ROMs. Tek made incredible stuff all the way! Must've been a great place to work at.
what are you like 80? 😂
I am a young thing. I turn 70 this year.
I was hired into the research lab that designed this and others, including a raster scan color version the 4062. Good times at the Wilsonville lab. I was a software engineer there.
The first “personal” computer was the LINC, created at MIT’s Lincoln Labs. It was the first machine cheap enough (five-figure price tag) to be purchased on the say-so of a Head of Department, without needing to seek permission from Beancounter Central.
We had one of these in the attack center on a Polaris submarine in the late ‘70s which could’ve been used to calculate great circle sailing courses but in reality was used by the officers to play an artillery barrage game.
Built a refreshing vector graphics display in the 80's for my Sinclar ZX81 usiing DA converters and an oscilloscope. Great fun at the time.
The Vectrex was the only vector display home video game console. It was released in 1982.
man you deserve MORE subs and views!
Love this, please do more. Your descriptions are fabulous.
This computer was used to create the scanner displays on the 1978 show Battlestar Galactica. The images were drawn, then shot one frame at a time and played back to give the appearance of motion, which was not possible on computers of the time because they were just too slow.
I was good friends with the son of one of the designers, Cliff Moulton who was also one of the founders of Tektronix.I have always though that this was the first personal graphics computer. When we were kids, we played a 3D shooter game called "Klingon" on it that his father programmed for us. IMO that was likely the first 1st-person 3D shooter ever made for a personal computer ( think there was one even earlier on a mainframe).
Cliff worked for my father at one time at the Allis Chalmers High Voltage Research lab in Beaverton, Oregon. Cliff was a fanatic amateur radio freak. He was also the youngest electrical engineers to ever graduate from Oregon State University - 16 years old. I remember him when I was a kid. Totally impressed with his intellect.
I think the Fairlight deserves an episode.
Possibly the first video game created simply for entertainment was 1958's Tennis for Two, featuring moving graphics
Loved it. Great debut video. Tek & vectors are obviously a subject close to my heart!
It's weird how it can't erase a character from the screen, yet it is able to make the cursor flash. Wonder why they couldn't have adapted the logic that does that into a proper backspace character deletion routine.
Found this video after I bought an old book on scientific graphing with computers which includes code samples for the Tektronix, the description here of how it works is very useful! I've also found an online emulator, so can even try out the listings :) Seems you stopped this channel after only a handful of videos. That's a pity, you started out really well! Try and get back to it :)
Really cool video. Also, nice OB-Xa :)
I used one in graduate school in the 70's. I loved that computer. I came out of punched cards.
I love these machines! So good to see someone showing them off.
You are on point with your personal computer argument. I used them to program sheet metal parts and the whole experience was essentially the same as a PC, Apple 8 bit machines, both of which were capable 8 bit workstations back in the time. The Tek computer was not as widely known, and expensive, but very powerful as a scientific, or industrial control, prototyping machine. You've got a great specimen. Your tube is basically factory!! Lucky you.
The 4050 series is amazing tech for its day -- truly rare and unique artefacts. The engineering that went into these things is incredible, and the DSVT in action is really something to behold. But they do have hardware issues, which isn't helped by the fact that Tek often tended to use custom components, particularly in their scopes.
As mentioned, the RAM and ROM typically fail and leave the system comatose. Replacing the ROM isn't straightforward as pin-compatible EPROMs are rare and too slow, and socket adapters don't fit due to limited clearance with the bottom of the case. Only the last revision (4052A) took standard 27xx series EPROMs.
One thing I find a bit disappointing is the choice of BASIC as built-in language. Yes, it was the standard of the day for minis and early personal computers, but there were other, more performant languages, such as Forth for example (though possibly more relevant in the 80s). BASIC feels like a lowest-common-denominator choice to drive such (then) sophisticated hardware. On top of that, Tek BASIC is pretty non-standard and, apart from the extensions to support the hardware, rather simple. There is no support for multiple statements, for example.
I have the 4052, which looks almost identical to the 4051, but has a completely different architecture and is significantly faster. It consists of a custom 16-bit extension of the 6800 -- that's _before_ the 68k! This is implemented using four AMD 2901 bitslice ALUs and a whole bunch of custom logic. The entire CPU is essentially made of up of a bunch of individual ICs, as it was done in the minis and mainframes of the day. The whole thing resides on 4 separate PCBs stacked back-to-back, similar to the assembly shown here. But the PCBs are much denser than in the 4051. It took me ~8 years (!) to obtain the schematics and spare ROMs/boards to revive my 4052. I imagine a similar effort went into this 4051 demo'd here. Congrats!
I'm in love with this machine
For comparison, in 1975, a Plymouth Satellite was about $2400, the dodge challenger $2860 to $3000 (depending upon options) $3000 was a muscle car...
This is dope. So excited for more videos.
So hey, the screen can't clear what's already been stored on it unless it does a flash clear, right? How is the cursor blinking? I notice flashes when things are written to the display, but the cursor doesn't blink - are there two layers of phosphor or something like that?
Also: You might want to consider a boom or lapel mic for when you're onscreen, or just run that section of audio through a compressor. Enjoyed the video and looking forward to more!
Thanks for the suggestion on the audio- i'll work thru it a bit. The tube doesn't refresh like a normal CRT, so there is no way to quickly add or remove elements from the display. To recap- In order to update the display to remove something, you must erase the whole thing (flood gun flash, and the blink you see). This is a good question; there were indeed storage tubes made with two layers- a static and dynamic layer where you could have refreshed content in a bright orange, and storage content in green, but this is not one of them- that came out on the 4052, as the CPU in the 4051 is probably not powerful enough to do refresh redraw of reasonable size objects in software while keeping up with other responsibilities. Anyway, in this model, the cursor is a hack- they put down the gun intensity far enough that it doesn't register as persistence, and as the area is small, they fire the gun there in software, refreshing it in a loop and blinking the area on and off. If it were a larger area, this wouldn't work- they'd need a different type of phosphor with more persistence, which is what they added in the multi layer write-thru displays. Anyway, CRT control on this system is entirely in software on the main CPU, and if you hang the CPU or run code that puts the gun and deflection out of spec, you can actually damage the screen thru arbitrary code execution. This is why Tek strongly encouraged end customers to write in BASIC...
@@megawordTV nice! lots of considerations to make if we're to write a demo for this, then 😉
@@megawordTV I think dynamic storage was only an option on the 19" 4054, not the 4052.
Interesting, electrostatic deflection... I wonder what frame rate that could be compared to on a modern display if the tube was controlled by a modern processor. And while achieving essentially infinite resolution (for some possible definitions of 'resolution').
Brings back memories. Q: How many times have you pulled out the "cheat-sheet" card under the crt?
Fabulous looking computer and nice explanation
You have convinced me sir, do you take cheques and do you deliver?
Holy cow!!! That was cool
Huh, this display looks exactly like the ones used in the first Alien movie, I wonder if they actually used it.
I follow you on Instagram and I’m so happy you UA-cam :)
Very interesting!
Very cool!
I'd love to have one but man I'm scared of that CRT. I've also heard that the tape drives go bad, that or it was one of those early desktop IBMs.
C'mon, CRTs are good for you, and this one's mesmerising to watch! 😉
The tape drive is mechanically quite solid and pretty simple. The capstan's idler ages remarkably well, and doesn't turn to goo -- I really wonder what formulation Tek used.
The tapes themselves (standard QICs you can probably still get today) are another story; the rubber band in them often gives and tangles the tape during rewind. Elastibands are supposed to be a good substitute, but I've never gotten my hands on them here.
Also, the band can fuse to the tape and peel off the oxide after years of storage without retensioning. Finally, oxide shed can build up on the head and give read errors, so it needs quite frequent cleaning. Basically these tapes are subject to the same breakdown as all magnetic media, and should be transferred ASAP. The 4052 makes this easy as it actually has a facility to dump tapes to the serial port! Good job, Tek! 👍
@@NuGanjaTron I hear the same thing happens with HP's desktop, one that looks like IBMs 5100. I meant that I'd be scared of just using it, don't want to break the screen or burn it in. But then it's not used, and that's a fate worse.
@@computeraidedworld1148 You mean the HP-85? That uses smaller DC100, and those are totally unreliable. None of those work anymore, and getting replacements is very difficult. In retrospect, it was a bad choice on behalf of HP. I think there is (was?) one manufacturer (Athana) for these, but the tape has a different coercivity which requires modifying the drive. I gave up on my HP-85's tape drive. 😐
@@NuGanjaTron ah alright. Yeah that 85 that's what I was thinking.
Nice review video. I have written a simulator for the 4051 that runs on Windows and will do most of the common commands that people used. Send me a message if you want to try it. You find me via my Aurelian Design site which is easy to find. I also have a number of videos on here showing how to program the 4051 (Part 1 through Part 6 to date).
Yo what kinda switches that keyboard got
How easy would it be to dremel that out and put a raspberry PI in there?
I can imagine Stackpole switch grid or early Cherry switches
@@DVRC Cherry Keys