Tek 4051 FS on E-bay

From: Eric Smith <eric-nospam-638_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Sat Mar 29 01:45:01 2003

Rick wrote about the Tektronix 4081:
> 19" DVST (Direct View Storage Tube) for the display, which had a mode
> which was called "write-thru" which allowed the beam to run at a reduced
> intensity which would cause line segments
> not to 'store'. If the beam was moved around fast enough, you could do
> moving vectors.
> The 4081 was based on an OEM'd Interdata 7/16 CPU board. As I recall,
> the Interdata 7/16
> had an IBM 360-like instruction set.

Always wondered what was inside the 4081. I only saw one once, but I
was extremely impressed.

> The 4081 CPU cabinet was about the size of one of those small
> refrigerators that you can put under a desk. The systems booted (IPL'd)
> off a mag-tape cartridge, the same type as used on the 4051. The 4081
> generally came with at least one cartridge disk drive (ala DEC RK05, but
> made by CDC
> as I recall) with one fixed, and one removable cartridge platter, each
> of about 5 Megabytes.

The DEC RK03 was a 2.5MB Diablo 31 drive, and the RK05 was a DEC-made
drive which was fully compatible with it.

The "equivalent" 5M fixed/5M removable drive is a Diablo 44, if memory
serves. I think the CDC equivalent was the Hawk, but I'm not sure if
the packs were interchangeable with the Diablo 44.

> There *was* a modification that some folks did to the 4051 which allowed
> it to also do write-thru
> animation,

I'd love to learn more about that!

> but the only way to get anything useful was to write machine
> code (4051 BASIC had a means to fill a character string with machine
> code and execute it) to run the display system.

And that, too!

Eric
Received on Sat Mar 29 2003 - 01:45:01 GMT