I really enjoyed developing programs in the late 1970's on the earlier 4051 computer. I'm having fun now developing new programs on my 4052 and 4054A computers.
The 4052/4054 service manual shows 360W for the 4054 power consumption, and the fan in the rear blows the air into the enclosure and out the slots on both sides of the top cover near the CRT, so I guess you could feel the heat sitting in front. Were there any other 4054 computers in the room with yours?
@@TEK-Vectors thanks. It’s a long time ago, felt like it was radiating from the front of the tube. Aircon was not great at the uni in Australia those days.
@@TEK-Vectors Ignore everything I said, I am thinking of a 4014 terminal. Just looked through some notes.. Keep the memories alive for those that missed that era.
Hey apologies for the random question, but do you know which font the system is using and what is the technique called when the program is drawing the graphics on screen in "white"?
The Tektronix 4050 vector graphics computers were introduced in the 1970's and used storage tubes (check out the wikipedia article on storage tubes, or the more detailed technical paper at vintagetek.org/storage-story/ ). The 4051 and 4052 computers used 5x8 dots for their custom dot-matrix character set. The 4054 computer had a larger 19-inch storage tube and used a custom vector character set that could be drawn at four different character sizes - as shown in this video. The "white" flash during drawing is due to the high energy of the CRT writing beam of electrons striking the phosphor on the CRT faceplate. After the beam is moved to a different place to draw a new vector or dot the phosphor that is written continues to glow but at a lower intensity due to a lower voltage applied to the faceplate. This is why the CRT is called a Storage Tube. If the phosphors were to be left glowing on the CRT more than 15 minutes or so - they will cause burn-in, so the display will automatically be erased after 15 minutes if no keyboard keys are pressed to prevent burn-in.
I remember running TekniCAD (Computer Aided Drafting Software) on the 4054. It also required the external floppy disk drive unit. TekniCAD worked best with the three-drive, two-cabinet floppy system - otherwise, you had to keep swapping out disks while working! I forget the number of the disk drive system, was it a 4997? I also used a Tek Word Processing package with the 4054, but I don't remember what it was called. You had to remember lots of cryptic keyboard codes for editing a document, not at all like word processing systems like Microsoft Word, that we take for granted, today.
4907 was the 8 inch floppy drive system. I have the 4907 system working with the second cabinet two extra drives. I ported the Colossal Cave Adventure to run from the floppy drive system.
4907 - that's it - I had forgotten the model number. You could order it with one, two or three floppy drives. For three drives, it required a second cabinet.
@@okokokok987 Here is a photo of my setup with 4907 8 inch floppy disks. I used the second 4907 for the second floppy. This year I found a 4907 expansion chassis.
![ปฏิเสธไม่ไหว (Crush on you) - LIPTA feat. No One Else [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NBw1jF342vw/mqdefault.jpg)
I love how it draws
This is so beautiful. Amazing.
Iconic is the sound of the storage screen erase button at the very beginning.
It sounds exactly like my 7623A Tek scope.
Pure Joy.
These are such marvellous machines. Please upload more videos !
I really enjoyed developing programs in the late 1970's on the earlier 4051 computer. I'm having fun now developing new programs on my 4052 and 4054A computers.
gorgeous
It used to be hot in front of those screens.
The 4052/4054 service manual shows 360W for the 4054 power consumption, and the fan in the rear blows the air into the enclosure and out the slots on both sides of the top cover near the CRT, so I guess you could feel the heat sitting in front. Were there any other 4054 computers in the room with yours?
@@TEK-Vectors thanks. It’s a long time ago, felt like it was radiating from the front of the tube. Aircon was not great at the uni in Australia those days.
@@TEK-Vectors Ignore everything I said, I am thinking of a 4014 terminal. Just looked through some notes.. Keep the memories alive for those that missed that era.
Hey apologies for the random question, but do you know which font the system is using and what is the technique called when the program is drawing the graphics on screen in "white"?
The Tektronix 4050 vector graphics computers were introduced in the 1970's and used storage tubes (check out the wikipedia article on storage tubes, or the more detailed technical paper at vintagetek.org/storage-story/ ). The 4051 and 4052 computers used 5x8 dots for their custom dot-matrix character set. The 4054 computer had a larger 19-inch storage tube and used a custom vector character set that could be drawn at four different character sizes - as shown in this video. The "white" flash during drawing is due to the high energy of the CRT writing beam of electrons striking the phosphor on the CRT faceplate. After the beam is moved to a different place to draw a new vector or dot the phosphor that is written continues to glow but at a lower intensity due to a lower voltage applied to the faceplate. This is why the CRT is called a Storage Tube. If the phosphors were to be left glowing on the CRT more than 15 minutes or so - they will cause burn-in, so the display will automatically be erased after 15 minutes if no keyboard keys are pressed to prevent burn-in.
@@TEK-Vectors Amazing, thank you for the info!
I remember running TekniCAD (Computer Aided Drafting Software) on the 4054. It also required the external floppy disk drive unit. TekniCAD worked best with the three-drive, two-cabinet floppy system - otherwise, you had to keep swapping out disks while working! I forget the number of the disk drive system, was it a 4997? I also used a Tek Word Processing package with the 4054, but I don't remember what it was called. You had to remember lots of cryptic keyboard codes for editing a document, not at all like word processing systems like Microsoft Word, that we take for granted, today.
4907 was the 8 inch floppy drive system. I have the 4907 system working with the second cabinet two extra drives. I ported the Colossal Cave Adventure to run from the floppy drive system.
4907 - that's it - I had forgotten the model number. You could order it with one, two or three floppy drives. For three drives, it required a second cabinet.
@@okokokok987 Here is a photo of my setup with 4907 8 inch floppy disks. I used the second 4907 for the second floppy. This year I found a 4907 expansion chassis.
sorry, didn't put in the photo link: www.vcfed.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=54400&d=1562290430
Yet you can't remember your real name!
Beautiful