I think it only sold about a thousand units, but it was more known and desired than you might think, due to its advanced capabilities for a 1977 computer. The high resolution color graphics were a lot more impressive than what the “trinity” offered. And it had weird interesting aspects, like coming out of Georgia (the USA Georgia), and weird colorful keyboards using optical sensors rather than electrical push buttons.
Due to rarity, it’s practically impossible for most of us to collect this hardware. But a modern remake could be cool!
Nice idea. (Some details on that system on this tribute site)
I have two kinds of responses, I think. One is for machines which had great promise but which failed in the market: the Sinclair QL springs to mind. And the other is for machines which had success but are difficult to find - for me, the Psion 3 was a pinnacle of handheld computability and usability.
I tend to like the big iron, with the lights and switch panels.
Alas most of them were designed as a control systems rather than
a general purpose computer.
With the fact that modern displays can run portrait mode,
I would like to see a PLATO system come about, or any the one
of kind computers found in a LAB or University back room.
As wished for item, a computer CPU that runs native BCPL code.
Several designs failed for being too early for their time, or cut too many
corners to save costs or raise profit margins. Now is good time while we
still have Z80’s and 6502’s and 5 volt programmable logic.
So what is that called? I have seen that before, ages ago when a search on google once worked.
Chord keyboard?
I like the regular keyboard, no gazillion of function keys like today.
Did anyone ever interface a track ball?
It’s one of the CDC machines, of a model that Engelbart himself worked on.
Maybe the very one he gave his 1968 demo on- he named the “mouse” but I don’t think he named the other device. Something related to “chord” came to my mind as well (or a partial octave of a keyboard).
I read up in the history of the mouse wheel also - I’d have to dig up my notes, but as I recall some in the mid to late 1980s like to lay credit to the mouse wheel, but I think ultimately the mouse wheel really was an invention of the early 1990’s. (this was important to me, to see if having a mouse wheel was “period correct” for any system in the 1980s; the Commander X16 might be the only 8-bit system to support the mouse wheel)
for me, I think that left-side-of-keyboard device would be useful for switching desktops. I never liked using the regular keyboard for that. And with large side-bar keys like that, I could label them myself. Actually, another utility might be “away status” for instant messaging- a quick “back in 30min” or “back in 60min” since I’ve often locked my screen and am gone before I remember that I forgot to set any of that.
Also, I believe, you simply enter the normal 5-bit codes. — Which makes me think, is this how it was intended and Baudot code is 5-bits, in the first place? (More likely, it’s just the minmal amount of bits, you can practically do with.)
Personally, I’d go for a Tatung Einstein remake: but only if it could have the Einstein’s amazingly high-quality keyboard…
The Einstein was a weird machine: Z80, used basically the same chipset as an MSX, booted into a ROM monitor by default, its DOS was CP/M compatible. The weirdest bit was how (or why) it was engineered by the UK arm of a Korean multinational.
I would say I don’t really understand the appeal of the Tatung Einstein, as its capabilities are so similar to MSX. But then I remember I’d love a Memotech MTX, and I can’t point to any reason beyond the black brushed aluminum cases.
VDP-80. I don’t know much about it, but it was so boss that it had TWO keypads. Those are horizontal 8" drives.
I found this printed ad for an SWTP System B, a 6809 based system from 1978. I’m not aware of any actually being made - but in all seriousness, a focused 6809-based system would be nice. The Foenix 256K (or related to that) is claiming to have some 6809 support - but it is some kind of modified 6809, not an original. And what the Tandy crew has done with OS-9 over the past year or two is amazing (so multi-tasking and a sizeable flat memory model would be nice things to see somewhere).
I remember spotting one or two lonely Xerox Altos in the common rooms of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science back in the early 1980s. It appeared that no one used them, maybe because they were rumored to be very slow due to their microcoded CPU architecture, or maybe because they were incompatible with MIT’s partly homegrown, mostly DEC computing environment of the day.
An odd feature of this nascent, shared-yet-personal workstation, I heard that each Alto user at Xerox was issued a 5MB disk-cartridge containing their personal workspace, which they would insert into an Alto each time they started a session, with further claims that the microcode was loaded from the hard disk at boot time too. This way each researcher could run their own version of the microcode. (Can anyone here confirm this claim?)
BTW, the only Xerox computer in our building that was always up (and fixed if it wasn’t) was the Dorado minicomputer that powered our one-and-only Xerox Dover laser printer, which was the size of a service bureau “industrial grade” photocopier.
The Alto disk drives were Diablo Model 31s, which used a single-platter cartridge of 2.5 megabytes capacity. Some Altos had a second (identical) drive; they could either hold two separate filesystems, or one could format a pair of disks as a single 5.0 megabyte filesystem. The Alto had microcode in read-only memory that emulated a Nova-like instruction set and included device controllers for disk, display, and Ethernet. It also had writable control store. So when a Smalltalk or Mesa program was loaded, the corresponding emulator microcode would also be loaded.
I used an Alto in the late 1970s while employed in Xerox’s office products division, writing the operating system for the Star office automation system.
Thanks Paul, for setting the record straight on the Alto details. It’s a real treat to have primary sources on this forum.
I don’t know how common writeable control stores were back then, but I do still remember seeing a PDP-11 with a writable control store on display at the DECUS conference in 1978. One of DEC’s hardware wizards, Richie Larry was showing off his unofficial microcode for this machine that emulated an PDP-8.
Thought experiment: the official microcode made it behave like a PDP-11, so would it be emulating a PDP-11? (My brain hurts.)
What is or isn’t an emulator (or simulator) is a bit of a philosophical question. Arguments could reasonably be made that a microcoded machine is an emulator. Arguments could also be made against.
Also, what is microcode, exactly? When Linux was “booted” on a 4004, one might say it was booting on a - somewhat unusual - microcoded MIPS processor.
I’m just inviting a little fun with this “what is an emulator” question (my brain doesn’t really hurt). Mostly the question is moot nowadays, since microcode is fading into retro land, although Intel processors probably still have some for implementing legacy, low performance instructions. Or do the recent Intel CPUs simply have a hardware translator from x86-ish to an internal RISC instruction set that is then injected into the pipeline?
Yes, the MIPS architecture was implemented in “vertical microcode” on a 4004. Next challenge: boot Linux on a Motorola MC14500B one-bit controller. ()
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