Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Jon Elson]

From: Christian Gauger-Cosgrove <captainkirk...@gmail.com>
To: SIMH <simh@trailing-edge.com>
Subject: Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System
Phototypesetters

That might be the case for most CRT based phototypesetters, but may I
direct the groups attention to:
<http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/202/> (Specifically to this YouTube
video linked on that page: <https://youtu.be/CVxeuwlvf8w>)

The page, and papers/videos thereon discuss the "jailbreaking" (to use
the modern term) of the Linotron 202 phototypesetter at Bell Labs by
Joe Condon, Brian Kernighan, and Ken Thompson in 1979. (What does all
this have to do with SIMH? Well, the Linotron 202 was controlled by a
PDP-11 running UNIX.)


Well, no surprise that BK and KT were involved in this sort 
of escapade!  Totally in character!


Jon
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Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Paul Koning]

> On Dec 10, 2015, at 11:48 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
> 
> Simulation of the output of early phototypesetters, or a Gerber photoplotter 
> is a little tricky because you need the glyph information that was printed on 
> the mechanism that shot the images of the characters onto the film output; 
> which could be moved around in different slots depending on the job being 
> typeset. Later units used high resolution CRT like things to form the 
> characters.

Indeed.  For disk type phototypesetters, you'd have to tell the simulation 
machinery what font disk is loaded, so it would know the character repertoire 
and their codes, to generate equivalent PostScript or the like.  For CRT type 
phototypesetters, the character and font repertoire is generally fixed for a 
given installation, but it would vary from one installation to the next.  
Customers would tell the manufacturers what fonts to include, and possibly 
special characters as well.  It's not like modern systems where you can count 
on Unicode (or even ASCII).

paul


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Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Quentin North]

> 
>> On Dec 9, 2015, at 10:33 PM, Will Senn  wrote:
>> ...
>> Is is possible to simulate a graphics terminal in SimH for the 
>> PDP-11/40/45/70. So far, I have been able to get a text console working (I 
>> think it's a Teletype ASR-33) and serial consoles (DCI). I have seen some 
>> video of real PDP's playing lunar lander and such on graphics terminals, and 
>> if this is possible in a simulated environment, I would like to try it out.
> 

A common graphics standard for serial terminals was Tektronix and an emulation 
of a tektronix terminal is available in xterm if you connect via telnet to the 
PDP from either a real x-terminal or a PC with x-term with an x-term emulator. 
The command is xterm -t for the emulator. Various current and past unix tools 
support tektronix graphing. There certainly was a tektronix lunar lander and 3D 
tic-tac-toe, although I had those on an HP2000
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Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Paul Koning]

> On Dec 10, 2015, at 10:50 AM, Quentin North  wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>>> On Dec 9, 2015, at 10:33 PM, Will Senn  wrote:
>>> ...
>>> Is is possible to simulate a graphics terminal in SimH for the 
>>> PDP-11/40/45/70. So far, I have been able to get a text console working (I 
>>> think it's a Teletype ASR-33) and serial consoles (DCI). I have seen some 
>>> video of real PDP's playing lunar lander and such on graphics terminals, 
>>> and if this is possible in a simulated environment, I would like to try it 
>>> out.
>> 
> 
> A common graphics standard for serial terminals was Tektronix and an 
> emulation of a tektronix terminal is available in xterm ...

That's a common one, yes.  But there were plenty of other formats as well, each 
proprietary to a specific vendor.  Tek was just more successful in making their 
particular codes into an industry standard.  

There's another angle I didn't mention, not as likely for most of us: you might 
have a terminal that uses a standard interface but an unexpected communication 
protocol.  An example would be the Harris 2200 display advertising layout 
terminal, which uses (I am *not* kidding) bisync in half duplex multipoint 
mode, over an async serial line (such as a DL11-E) with modem control.  So you 
could almost do that with SIMH (give or take the modem control) but you'd end 
up having to implement both the data comm protocol as well as the graphics 
primitives at the other end of that serial data stream.

paul

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Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Paul Koning]

> On Dec 9, 2015, at 10:33 PM, Will Senn  wrote:
> ...
> Is is possible to simulate a graphics terminal in SimH for the 
> PDP-11/40/45/70. So far, I have been able to get a text console working (I 
> think it's a Teletype ASR-33) and serial consoles (DCI). I have seen some 
> video of real PDP's playing lunar lander and such on graphics terminals, and 
> if this is possible in a simulated environment, I would like to try it out.

There are two parts to this.  One is the conversion of the output data stream 
to the image.  The other is the interface used.  In the case of a GT40, you 
have a distinct interface along with its encoding of graphics.  If you have 
something like that but with a different interface, you'd have to emulate that 
interface.  (For example, if you wanted to emulate a VT20, that's what would be 
involved.)

On the other hand, if you're dealing with a graphics terminal that interfaces 
via a serial line, the existing serial port interfaces would work and "all" you 
need is an external program that connects to that data stream -- say, via a 
telnet connection -- and turns it into a graphics image.

> Also, is it possible to simulate a graphics system phototypesetter? I get the 
> feeling that this is what TROFF was actually designed for and would be 
> interested in trying it out, as well.

Same issue, basically.  The typesetters I remember from my days in Typeset-11 
used a parallel interface somewhat like a line printer interface but, I think, 
not exactly the same.  Emulating that would be quite easy.  The data stream was 
proprietary to each typesetter, so the main task would be to interpret that 
data stream and translate it to graphics primitive for your chosen modern 
output device.  For example, it would probably be fairly straightforward to map 
old style typesetter output into PostScript.  The biggest issue might be 
finding adequate typesetter documentation, though for the Unix case you can, if 
all else fails, reverse engineer the application software that was used to 
drive it.

paul


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Re: [Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Clem cole]

Will 

The quick answer is yes.  Check out vtroff on the BSD tapes.  The Versatec 
plotter was used to simulate a C/A/T typesetter which is what the original 
troff created and before the laser printer was in common use.  

Clem

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 9, 2015, at 10:33 PM, Will Senn  wrote:
> 
> Also, is it possible to simulate a graphics system phototypesetter? I get the 
> feeling that this is what TROFF was actually designed for and would be 
> interested in trying it out, as well.
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[Simh] Graphics Terminals and Graphic System Phototypesetters

[Will Senn]

All,

I am using the SimH PDP 11 simulator to learn about the PDP 11/40/45/70 
architectures with a particular focus on Sixth and Seventh Edition Unix. 
I have written a couple of notes based on my experiences/trials that are 
available at:


v6 - 
http://decuser.blogspot.com/2015/11/installing-and-using-research-unix.html

and
v7 - 
http://decuser.blogspot.com/2015/12/installing-and-using-research-unix.html


I am open to comments, suggestions, and criticisms, I have been getting 
an inordinate amount of help from the folks on the TUHS mailing list 
with respect to the Unix side of things, but now I am looking into the 
SimH side of things and was hoping y'all might help...


Is is possible to simulate a graphics terminal in SimH for the 
PDP-11/40/45/70. So far, I have been able to get a text console working 
(I think it's a Teletype ASR-33) and serial consoles (DCI). I have seen 
some video of real PDP's playing lunar lander and such on graphics 
terminals, and if this is possible in a simulated environment, I would 
like to try it out.


Also, is it possible to simulate a graphics system phototypesetter? I 
get the feeling that this is what TROFF was actually designed for and 
would be interested in trying it out, as well.


I'm a relative newbie to SimH, PDP 11's, and Unix v6/v7, so if I'm 
completely off base in my questions, please let me know.


Thanks,

Will

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