Another ~1960 computer kit - Philips?

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Mon Dec 21 13:57:35 1998

On Mon, 21 Dec 1998, John Foust wrote:

> What does an E&S PS-300 look like?

IIRC, a big vector display in a black rounded cab, a dorm-fridge-sized 68K
box, and an assortment of doo-dads like joysticks, trackballs, dials, etc.
The keyboard had programmable function keys, and I think it may have had
programmable LED labels as well.

Ours was talking to a VAX, and I'd do number crunching on the VAX and send
the data to the PS-300 for display and 3-D manipulation.

> I saw one last Friday. Or part of one. It was a large monitor
> with the tag "Evans and Sutherland PS-300" and a digitizing tablet
> of some kind. There was a large cable coming from it with a round
> connector and a dozen or so conductors. I expected it to be connected
> to a large box containing the computer power, but didn't see that,
> nor any keyboard. It was for sale for about $20 at the UW-Madison
> surplus store. It was so large and appeared to be missing the
> main components, so I didn't buy it.

Bait! :-)

> There was a Sequent S27 parallel computer there, too. I don't
> know how many nodes it had.

Take it home and count them. I've got two parallel boxen on my wish list,
so let me know if you bump into an Intel iPSC/1 (or /2) or a CM-1 (or any
Connection Machine, I'm not picky :-).

-- Doug
Received on Mon Dec 21 1998 - 13:57:35 GMT