Another thing to look for when searching for IBM 1130 information
is the Meta 4.
The Meta 4 (from Digital Scientific) was a clone of the
IBM 1130, made in San Diego (ok, maybe Del Mar or Sorrento
Valley area) around 1970. IIRC it was called an 1130 clone, but
actually had the extra instruction(s) that would really make it an 1800
clone.
There's an article on it at:
http://www.cowo.de/archiv/1976/15/7615c064.html
It was this machine, at UCSD, that I wrote SPACEWAR on in
1970, inspired by the article in Analog SF magazine. We had an
Evans & Sutherland vector graphic display, and some kind of home
brew sound (using Wavetek wave generators?). I still have a listing
of the FORTRAN source for this SPACEWAR somewhere.
I used the console switches as the controls, and had the usual
gravity, hyperwarp (unreliable, of course...using it too often would
get you killed). Someone added random twinkling stars at one point.
We also had a computer-assisted targeting option for the second
spaceship, which slowed things down but aided new players.
I remember that the Meta 4 had firmware that was implemented on
boards about 1 foot by 1 foot, with little copper squares of foil about
the 1/4" by 1/4" ...indicating 1/0 by presence/absence. One problem
was that the squares would sometimes lift up a bit, so we'd take out
the boards and press them down again.
I remember we also had APL, on a removable disk cartridge.
Stan Sieler
sieler_at_allegro.com
Received on Tue Feb 02 1999 - 13:34:57 GMT