The Tektronix 4050 is a series of three

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

microcomputers produced by

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent ...

in the late 1970s through the early 1980s. The display technology is similar to the

Tektronix 4010 The Tektronix 4010 series was a family of text-and-graphics computer terminals based on storage-tube technology created by Tektronix. Several members of the family were introduced during the 1970s, the best known being the 11-inch 4010 and 19-inc ...

terminal, using a

storage tube Storage tubes are a class of cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) that are designed to hold an image for a long period of time, typically as long as power is supplied to the tube. A specialized type of storage tube, the Williams tube, was used as a main mem ...

display to avoid the need for

video RAM Dual-ported video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM (DRAM), which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in graphics adapters. Note that most computers and game consoles do not use this form of memory, and dual-porte ...

. They are all-in-one designs with the display, keyboard, CPU and

DC300 Quarter inch cartridge tape (abbreviated QIC, commonly pronounced "quick") is a magnetic tape data storage format introduced by 3M in 1972, with derivatives still in use as of 2016. QIC comes in a rugged enclosed package of aluminum and plastic t ...

tape drive in a single desktop case. They also include a

GPIB Glycoprotein Ib (GPIb), also known as CD42, is a component of the GPIb-V-IX complex on platelets. The GPIb-V-IX complex binds von Willebrand factor, allowing platelet adhesion and platelet plug formation at sites of vascular injury. It is defici ...

parallel bus In data transmission, parallel communication is a method of conveying multiple binary digits (bits) simultaneously using multiple conductors. This contrasts with serial communication, which conveys only a single bit at a time; this distinction ...

interface for controlling lab and test equipment as well as connecting to external peripherals. A simple

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

and BASIC interpreter are included in

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

. A key concept of the systems is the use of a

for the display. This allows the screen to retain images drawn to it, eliminating the need for a

framebuffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

computer memory In computing, memory is a device or system that is used to store information for immediate use in a computer or related computer hardware and digital electronic devices. The term ''memory'' is often synonymous with the term '' primary storag ...

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 8-bit

Motorola 6800 The 6800 ("''sixty-eight hundred''") is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System (latter dubbed ''68xx'') that also included serial and para ...

running at a 1 MHz. It normally shipped with 8 KB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

and was expandable using 8 KB modules to 32 KB. The remaining 32 KB of address space was reserved for ROM, which could be expanded using two external ROM cartridge of 8 KB each. It included six

character set Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values tha ...

s in ROM and an extended dialect of BASIC that included various vector drawing commands. The 4051 was released in 1975 for the base price of . Adding the optional

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such ...

interface allowed it to emulate a Tektronix 4012 terminal. 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 , and could be expanded to 64 KB for another . 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 Shugart 851R 8-inch floppy drives with 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

Corning Glass Works Corning Incorporated is an American multinational technology company that specializes in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies including advanced optics, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The co ...

for their Type 904 graphics terminal. The display for this system had characteristics to the similar to those of Tektronix storage tube display. It used small pixel regions composed of

photosensitive glass Photosensitive glass, also known as photostructurable glass (PSG) or photomachinable glass, is a crystal-clear glass that belongs to the lithium-silicate family of glasses, in which an image of a mask can be captured by microscopic metallic par ...

, which could be darkened (forming a black line image) by writing, and would display this persistently until the entire display was erased. When Corning left the market this software base was sold to Tektronix. The original demo included an artillery game which was later adapted by high school students at Lindbergh High School in Renton, Washington to the

HP 9830 The HP 9800 is a family of what were initially called programmable calculators and later desktop computers that were made by Hewlett-Packard, replacing their first HP 9100 calculator. It is also named "98 line". The 9830 and its successors wer ...

, and also adapted by Hewlett-Packard for the

HP 2647 The HP 2640A and other HP 264X models were block-mode "smart" and intelligent ASCII standard serial terminals produced by Hewlett-Packard using the Intel 8008 and 8080 microprocessors. History The HP 2640A was introduced in November 1974 at a l ...

intelligent graphics terminal demo tape and eventually similar games in

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ...

for the IBM PC. Other games for the Tektronix included ''Weather Wars'', with users directing lightning bolts and tornados against opponents in an environment affected by wind.

Theatrical Use

Because the direct view storage tubes do not flicker as do conventional CRTs, and because the BASIC programming interface allowed simple, rapid rendering of

vector graphic Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display a ...

displays, the 405x series were used in many theatrical contexts. In particular, 405x computers can frequently be seen in early '' Battlestar Galactica'' sets.

References

External links

A Creative Computing Equipment Profile -- Tektronix 4051 Graphics SystemDrawing lines on 4052 videoDescription of a 4051 BASIC and graphics simulator for WindowsDemo video for the 4051 BASIC and graphics simulator for Windows
{{Tektronix Tektronix Computers using bit-slice designs 68xx-based computers