27 May
2014
27 May
'14
7:30 a.m.
Thank you to everyone who has responded so far.
Let me clarify a little - Marty and I are looking for a list of computers
from about 1971 and earlier (1977 at the latest, but
the real focus is on
the 1960s) that had the capability of playing Spacewar.
We've had reports
of a few different machines running it, but obviously there are going to be
a lot of gaps in oral history. Having a list of machines with displays
(CRT, vector, or other) would help identify where some of those gaps might
be.
Here are all the machines we've had reports of Spacewar on them:
1. PDP-1
2. PDP-4
3. PDP-6
4. PDP-7
5. PDP-8 (probably text-based version)
6. PDP-10
7. PDP-11
8. LINC-8
9. DEC-10
10. HP59825 desktop calculator
11. 544 ARTW/Trajectory Division
12. PLATO
13. DDP-224
14. IBM System/360 (IBM 2250 Model 1 display) or 2250-4 (a 2250/1130
Model 4)
15. CDC-3100
16. Data General NOVA
17. IMLAC PDS-1
18. Virtual Machine Facility/370 (VM/370)
Note some of these have multiple versions created in different locations
independently.
1972 is a key date because that's when PLATO went on the ARPANET, and
software could be more widely distributed. This was also the first year
that Spacewar was written for a home computer in BYTE Magazine. 1977 was
the release of the arcade version and publication of a version for the
Altair 8080.
Want to clarify that we're not looking for home computer releases, unless
maybe you have examples earlier than 1977.
On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 05:08:41PM +0100, Dave wrote:
If you are talking 1960's I think the real answer is "not much". I
There was quite a bit actually. The LINC, LINC-8, PDP-1 and
PDP-12 all had vector displays. There was also an add-on for the
original PDP-8 and PDP-6, display 340 or something like that.
These are all DEC of course, Martin might be interested in the
TX-0 from MIT unless it's out of scope.
/P 
2 Jun
2 Jun
12:33 p.m.
On May 27, 2014, at 7:30 AM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you to everyone who has responded so far.
Let me clarify a little - Marty and I are looking for a list of computers
from about 1971 and earlier (1977 at the latest, but the real focus is on
the 1960s) that had the capability of playing Spacewar. We've had reports
of a few different machines running it, but obviously there are going to be
a lot of gaps in oral history. Having a list of machines with displays
(CRT, vector, or other) would help identify where some of those gaps might
be.
Here are all the machines we've had reports of Spacewar on them:
1. PDP-1
2. PDP-4
3. PDP-6
4. PDP-7
5. PDP-8 (probably text-based version)
6. PDP-10
7. PDP-11
8. LINC-8
9. DEC-10
10. HP59825 desktop calculator
11. 544 ARTW/Trajectory Division
12. PLATO
13. DDP-224
14. IBM System/360 (IBM 2250 Model 1 display) or 2250-4 (a 2250/1130
Model 4)
15. CDC-3100
16. Data General NOVA
17. IMLAC PDS-1
18. Virtual Machine Facility/370 (VM/370)
Note some of these have multiple versions created in different locations
independently.
1972 is a key date because that's when PLATO went on the ARPANET, and
software could be more widely distributed. This was also the first year
that Spacewar was written for a home computer in BYTE Magazine. 1977 was
the release of the arcade version and publication of a version for the
Altair 8080.
PLATO on the ARPANET? Um, no. PLATO eventually showed up on the Internet, but that
wasn?t until much later. And I don?t believe that PLATO *ever* did software distribution
that way; Internet connections were for terminal access, and also for limited transfers
among PLATO systems but not other systems.
You might also add the CDC 6000 series, which had a console based Spacewar going back
quite a ways.
Also, I assume you meant ?spacewar? generically, as opposed to the specific game
originally found on the PDP-1. There are plenty of ?space war? games on PLATO, but I
doubt any of them match the PDP-1, if for no other reason that PLATO allowed for much more
sophisticated games.
paul
5:33 p.m.
On Jun 2, 2014, at 1:16 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 05/27/2014 04:30 AM, Devin Monnens wrote:
Yes, but a bunch of the other entries in his list also describe terminals, or terminals
plus software.
PLATO is a large body of software, plus specialized terminals and specialized terminal
controllers (at least in the earlier versions).
paul
12. PLATO
PLATO is not a machine. It's software used with a proprietary terminal, running, in
its prime, on CDC 60-bit hardware. 
6:35 p.m.
In article <EDF62337-2E85-4B79-B2C2-B923767081ED at comcast.net>,
Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> writes:
On May 27, 2014, at 7:30 AM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:
RFC600 describes attaching a plato terminal to the arpanet in
November, 1973. <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc600>
This claims PLATO was on the ARPANET for 10 years:
<http://www.platohistory.org/about/>
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://ComputerGraphicsMuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://LegalizeAdulthood.wordpress.com>
1972 is a key date because that's when PLATO
went on the ARPANET, and
software could be more widely distributed. This was also the first year
that Spacewar was written for a home computer in BYTE Magazine. 1977 was
the release of the arcade version and publication of a version for the
Altair 8080.
PLATO on the ARPANET? Um, no. PLATO eventually showed up on the Internet,
but that wasn't until much later. 
10:22 p.m.
On 06/02/2014 02:33 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
On Jun 2, 2014, at 1:16 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Then Devin should not have headed the list with "Here are all the
machines we've had reports of Spacewar on them:"
On 05/27/2014 04:30 AM, Devin Monnens wrote:
Yes, but a bunch of the other entries in his list also describe
terminals, or terminals plus software. 12. PLATO
PLATO is not a machine. It's software used with a proprietary
terminal, running, in its prime, on CDC 60-bit hardware. PLATO is a large body of software, plus specialized
terminals and
specialized terminal controllers (at least in the earlier versions).
I think I said that.
I suspect that the list is very incomplete. I wonder particularly about
less-known systems. Did Spacewar ever run on Microdata or Varian
hardware, for example?
As far as PLATO on ARPAnet, no I don't think I ever saw that. The web
site cited says: "For nearly ten years, there were more users on PLATO
than there were on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet."
It was my impression that the network used Cybernet, greatly enhanced by
CDC's win in the lawsuit filed against IBM where it acquired SBC. I
believe that Ticketron also used Cybernet, but I'm not certain.
--Chuck
3 Jun
3 Jun
10:10 a.m.
On Jun 2, 2014, at 10:22 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
...
It was my impression that the network used Cybernet, greatly enhanced by CDC's win in
the lawsuit filed against IBM where it acquired SBC. I believe that Ticketron also used
Cybernet, but I'm not certain.
PLATO did not use Cybernet. The original PLATO terminal interconnect was a custom design
intended to distribute 1260 baud synchronous data to 1008 terminals out of a single
terminal mux interface, for transmission over a single link (essentially a video stream,
compatible with microwave video distribution transmitters). (See Bitsavers,
pdf/univOfIllinoisUrbana/plato, reports X-26 and X-27.)
In the mid 1970s a host to host network was constructed specifically for PLATO systems, at
first just between University of Illinois and CDC. That was the ?Doelz network? (after
its designer). I have not been able to find any documentation on what the hardware looked
like; what little I have been able to deduce about the software is pretty gnarly. It
certainly did not bear any resemblance I can see to any other network, nor (fortunately)
did any other network pick up any Doelz ideas.
At some point, PLATO systems started using CDCnet I/O; for example, the FAA system that
was the last running production PLATO system worked that way. That provided terminal
connections via Telnet, and PLATO host to host file transfer via some protocol I don?t
remember.
paul
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