Tektronix 4107

From: John Allain <John.Allain_at_donnelley.infousa.com>
Date: Thu Apr 13 08:47:08 2000

-- Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)

> This was a rather neat little graphics terminal (CRT). You could draw all
> sorts of shapes on the screen by issuing commands such as "Square
> 0,0,10,10" or "Line 4,4,20,20", etc.

> They were pretty exciting back in 1984 or so (when I first saw one), but
> probably long since outdone by VGA/SVGA graphics ...


I helped sell an installation of 60 of these little buggers
to G.E. back in 1984-5. The cheapest I ever saw them since
was $150 at "Wierd Stuff Warehouse" 5 years later. All I
have today is a nice set of manuals. Tek's documentation
rivaled H.P.'s in clarity and construction (I'd actually put
them slightly ahead of DEC).

They were a little slow but had enough memory for a decent
review sized plot. I think the specs allowed for something
like 128 byte commands saved locally behind the Fkeys. One
of our team hacked it so as to get a key to store over 8K.
There were some notable early market failures from Tek doing
Vector paint in raster HW, but by this time they were really
getting it right.

Ask me sometime about their ink-jet printer... If you
ever had to clean one of them you really got to to play
'Joe Surgeon'. "Brought to you by David Letterman and
Heart Bypass surgery" "Clamp!" "Sponge!"

John A.
Received on Thu Apr 13 2000 - 08:47:08 BST