Tektronix 4050
The Tektronix 4050 is a series of three
A key concept of the systems is the use of a storage tube for the display. This allows the screen to retain images drawn to it, eliminating the need for a framebuffer, computer memory devoted to the display. Most systems of the era had limited resolution due to the expense of the buffer needed to hold higher resolution images, but this is eliminated in the 4050s and allows the resolution to be as high as the hardware can handle, which was ostensibly 1024 by 1024 but limited by the physical layout of the screen to 1024 by 780. It also allows the machine to dedicate all of its memory to the programs running on it, as opposed to partitioning off a section for the buffer.
Models
The first model, the 4051, was based on
The second model was the 4052, which in spite of the similar name was a very different system. This had a CPU based on four AMD 2901 4-bit bit-slice processors used together to make a single 16-bit processor. It could also be used in a 6800-compatible mode, allowing it to run software from the 4051, although it did so much faster than the original 4051. Released in 1978, it came with a full 32 KB of RAM for US$9,795 (equivalent to $45,760 in 2023), and could be expanded to 64 KB for another US$1,995 (equivalent to $9,320 in 2023).
The 4054 was a version of the 4052 built around the 19" screen from the 4014 terminal rather than the 11" screen from the 4012, increasing resolution to 4096 by 3072.
Peripherals
External storage units were available:
- The 4924 was an external version of the internal DC300 tape drive.
- The 4907 used single or dual floppy driveswith 64 KB floppies.
- The larger, 2-drawer-filing-cabinet-sized 4909 storage unit used a CDC 96 megabyte hard drive with the first 16 megabytes in the form of a removable disc-pack.
Two sizes of the 4956 graphics tablet (20"x20", 36"x48") offered a slow process for inputting from paper drawings. The 4952 joystick was used for graphics input.
Software
The graphic display software was based upon software originally developed in the 1960s by
The original demo included an
Theatrical use
Because the direct view storage tubes do not flicker as do conventional CRTs, and because the
References
- ^ a b Grey, Stephen (1977). "Tektronix 4051 Graphics System". Creative Computing.
- ^ Tektronix 4051 (PDF) (Technical report). Tektronix. 1976.