23 Oct
1998
23 Oct
'98
8:26 a.m.
On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Not on a PDP-8. There was a vector graphics board
set. It used an
oscilloscope for a display tube. As was proven in a patent lawsuit
filed against Nintendo, video games did exist before Pong, just not
in the living rooms of America.
Sam replied:
Oooh, this sounds cool. Do you have any more details
behind this or a
URL?
The board set was the VC8-E (M869), and it was typically used with a VR14
monitor (same as used in the PDP-11-based GT40).
I have a not-yet-fully-functional Lab-8/e, which is a PDP-8/e configured with
the VT8-E, A/D and D/A converters, and a rack-mount VR14. There was a special
version of FOCAL with support for these devices.
There is a version of Space War that will run on an 8/e with the VC8-E.
There is also a raster display interface, the VT8-E (M8335, M8336, M8337)
that can even do bit-mapped graphics, DMA'd from the core memory. I'd like
to get my hands on one of these.
Eric