At UCL in the early 1980’s we had Tektronix graphics terminals that were exactly as you said. Exotic and scarce devices, fun to watch :-) , compared to the character-based terminals we all had access to. (This on GEC 4000 series mainframes.)
Martin Packer > On 27 Nov 2017, at 06:11, Tom Brennan <t...@tombrennansoftware.com> wrote: > > Ha... max users=6 :) Sounds a bit like my first computer-related job. > Around 1979 I asked to be moved across the hall from the manual map > drafting department (ink on silk) to the new graphic computers. We had > 10 stations running sold by this company: > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Computervision&d=DwICaQ&c=jf_iaSHvJObTbx-siA1ZOg&r=BsPGKdq7-Vl8MW2-WOWZjlZ0NwmcFSpQCLphNznBSDQ&m=2_lduX0-vYU99tSZtC52Ob1_aDt3vfQtzlP2AxWzxjo&s=cUauBLOMke6VZSYZiT-RBVff3iRWsbEMpLk-a6M1Ys0&e= > > The displays were storage scopes, and you could see the computer draw a > very bright temporary line on the green phosphor which then "stuck" as a > charged image, but not nearly as bright as the original flash. Lines > (and multiple lines that approximated arcs) accumulated on the screen > until the drawing was complete. To erase something, the computer would > flash a high voltage to the screen that erased everything, and then it > repainted the entire image all over again (minus what was erased). You > had to have the patience of a saint. > > Edward Finnell wrote: >> Back in the sixties when Federal Systems was big, I seem to remember >> graphics on TI/HP terminals with oscilloscopes as screen via acoustic >> couplers no less. Later there were graphic accelerators that went thru the >> 5088. Haven't looked in a while but there was an option in PARMLIB for >> graphics support. >> >> Back when Bill Butterfield/GMR was head of SHARE one of his merry men gave a >> talk on their environment. It was a big 600j with a good bit of graphics. >> Don't remember the specifics but maxusers on TSO was 6. >> >> In a message dated 11/26/2017 2:43:55 PM Central Standard Time, >> t...@tombrennansoftware.com writes: >> >> >> APA = All Points Available (or Addressable), which would allow any dot >> on the screen to be set by the host. I assume that means I could send >> special codes to the screen to say, draw a (real) line or arc, or maybe >> just send an entire block of bits to the screen. And I think I read >> this function was never available on any real IBM hardware, only on >> emulators. >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
