9 Oct
2007
9 Oct
'07
12:02 p.m.
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of graphics products (UNIBUS or
Q-BUS) for the PDP-11 family of minicomputers?
Please don't list terminals with graphics capability, that's not what
I'm after.
Thanks!
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9 Oct
9 Oct
12:21 p.m.
At 1:02 PM -0600 10/9/07, Richard wrote:
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of graphics
products (UNIBUS or
Q-BUS) for the PDP-11 family of minicomputers?
Please don't list terminals with graphics capability, that's not what
I'm after.
I'm not aware of such a list, I believe there are only about 3-6
"video cards". I've a 3rd party card that was used in a Cameca
Microprobe (Electron Microscope). The DEC cards were/are popular in
spectrum analyzers, and a lot of those are still in service in labs.
Zane
--
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| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
12:30 p.m.
In article <p0624086cc331820e7572(a)[192.168.1.199]>9]>,
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> writes:
I'm not aware of such a list, I believe there are
only about 3-6
"video cards". I've a 3rd party card that was used in a Cameca
Microprobe (Electron Microscope). The DEC cards were/are popular in
spectrum analyzers, and a lot of those are still in service in labs.
Yes, I already know such cards exist.
I'm looking for information on them: make/model, module/board IDs,
etc.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
2:26 p.m.
At 1:02 PM -0600 10/9/07, Richard wrote:
There were rather more than that, and most of them were racks of
electronics that happened to have a Unibus/Qbus interface on the end.
Often there were interfaces abailable for other minis too.
Ones I know about (I have some of these)
DEC VT11 (Unibus interface, vector display)
Ramtek Marguis 9460 (Rack of boards witha Z80 or 68K to control them.
Colour raster display, Unibus or Qbus interfaces)
Grinnel PDP11 framstore (linked to a DR11-B, possibly no Q-bus version)
PPL Video Disk (A special hard disk that stored video as an FM signal,
one frape per track. COlour output, rack of boards to control it. Linked
to a DR11-B again)
I2S Model 70 and Model 75 Image processors. Large cabinets of boards.
Interfaces avaialvbe to Unibus, HP2100, etc. There was also the GPIT,
which linked it to a DR(V)11-W
Does the AMT DAP count :-) An SIMD machine with a graphics output that
links to a DR11-W
-tony
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of graphics
products (UNIBUS or
Q-BUS) for the PDP-11 family of minicomputers?
Please don't list terminals with graphics capability, that's not what
I'm after.
I'm not aware of such a list, I believe there are only about 3-6
"video cards". I've a 3rd party card that was used in a Cameca 
3:33 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Qbus: VSV11, VSV90, QVSS, QDVSS (aka Dragon)
UNIBUS: VT30, VS100 (wasn't X developed on this?)
I don't know which will actually work (or were intended for) any
of the PDP-11 series. I've used both the QVSS and QDSS on MicroVAX
systems.
At university I used a framestore of some kind that hung off a
PDP-11/23's Q-bus. The PDP lived in an H9xx cab of some sort and the
framestore stood next to it and was about the same size. Not sure
it would count as a "graphics system" in the modern sense, and anyway
I cannot for the life of me remember the make.
Antonio
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08/10/2007 16:54
At 1:02 PM
-0600 10/9/07, Richard wrote:
There were rather more than that, and most of them were racks of
electronics that happened to have a Unibus/Qbus interface on the end.
Often there were interfaces abailable for other minis too. Does anyone have a comprehensive list of graphics
products (UNIBUS
or Q-BUS) for the PDP-11 family of minicomputers?
I'm not aware of such a list, I believe there are only about 3-6
"video cards". I've a 3rd party card that was used in a Cameca
4:05 p.m.
In article <002301c80ac4$623fdf40$5b01a8c0 at uatempname>,
"Antonio Carlini" <arcarlini at iee.org> writes:
At university I used a framestore of some kind that
hung off a
PDP-11/23's Q-bus. The PDP lived in an H9xx cab of some sort and the
framestore stood next to it and was about the same size. Not sure
it would count as a "graphics system" in the modern sense, and anyway
I cannot for the life of me remember the make.
Frame buffers are graphics systems, just dumb ones.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
7:34 p.m.
I know naught of its specs, but what of the Terak system, which I
believe was 11-based?
5:23 p.m.
UNIBUS: VT30, VS100 (wasn't X developed on this?)
I think it was developed on a VAXstation 2000?
A long time ago I had a Unibus color vector graphics board from some
third party. I remember it had some really weird coax connectors for
output signals.
No amount of truth serum will be able to dig up any facts from my head, however.
--
Will
4:23 p.m.
Grinnel PDP11
framstore (linked to a DR11-B, possibly no Q-bus version)
I remember this one.
Frame buffer with a size of decent freezer ;-)
6:52 p.m.
In article <200710092326.TAA15052 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>,
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> writes:
That sounds a lot like the Grinnell (I think
that's how it was spelt)
framebuffer we had at the lab I worked at in the '80s. It was a Unibus
device, attached to our VAX-11/780, and had some capabilities I've
never seen in a framebuffer since.
Such as?
Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices available ever.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
6:57 p.m.
Richard wrote:
In article <200710092326.TAA15052 at
Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>,
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> writes:
A bus interface for an 11?
Jim Davis.
and had some capabilities I've
never seen in a framebuffer since.
Such as?
Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices available ever.
7:06 p.m.
Richard wrote:
In article <200710092326.TAA15052 at
Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>,
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> writes:
they are neat, but not doing anything which wasn't done 20 years ago.
But they do it very fast ;-)
That sounds a lot like the Grinnell (I think
that's how it was spelt)
framebuffer we had at the lab I worked at in the '80s. It was a Unibus
device, attached to our VAX-11/780, and had some capabilities I've
never seen in a framebuffer since.
Such as?
Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices available ever. 
7:06 p.m.
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Richard wrote:
In article <200710092326.TAA15052 at
Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>,
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> writes:
Can't speak about the Grinnel, but in the early '80s I was involved with
a site that had some nice Megatek (IIRC) stroke graphics engines that include
a conic section generator so it could do curves and circles and stuff.
'Course, for all I know that was standard equipment for stroke graphics
hardware...
--
roger ivie
rivie at ridgenet.net
That sounds a lot like the Grinnell (I think
that's how it was spelt)
framebuffer we had at the lab I worked at in the '80s. It was a Unibus
device, attached to our VAX-11/780, and had some capabilities I've
never seen in a framebuffer since.
Such as?
Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices available ever.
7:35 p.m.
In article <Pine.NEB.4.63.0710091905000.24939 at stench.no.domain>,
Roger Ivie <rivie at ridgenet.net> writes:
Can't speak about the Grinnel, but in the early
'80s I was involved with
a site that had some nice Megatek (IIRC) stroke graphics engines that include
a conic section generator so it could do curves and circles and stuff.
Was this a storage tube, calligraphic tube or raster tube?
'Course, for all I know that was standard
equipment for stroke graphics
hardware...
It depends on what you mean by stroke graphics hardware; the Tektronix
401x series is a storage tube device that is "painted" by strokes, but
it doesn't have anything more than point, line and character output.
You have to build smooth curves out of line approximations.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
8:14 p.m.
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Richard wrote:
In article <Pine.NEB.4.63.0710091905000.24939 at stench.no.domain>,
Roger Ivie <rivie at ridgenet.net> writes:
Calligraphic tube.
--
roger ivie
rivie at ridgenet.net
Can't speak about the Grinnel, but in the
early '80s I was involved with
a site that had some nice Megatek (IIRC) stroke graphics engines that include
a conic section generator so it could do curves and circles and stuff.
Was this a storage tube, calligraphic tube or raster tube?
7:32 p.m.
That sounds a
lot like the Grinnell (I think that's how it was
spelt) framebuffer we had at the lab I worked at in the '80s. It
was a Unibus device, attached to our VAX-11/780, and had some
capabilities I've never seen in a framebuffer since.
Such as? Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices
available ever.
...in some respects. Most of their fancies, though, are aimed at high
frame rate when doing 3D rendering, and don't even notice other
possibilities.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10 Oct
10 Oct
9:37 a.m.
In article <200710100240.WAA16058 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>,
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> writes:
In pseudo-C pseudo-code, the per-pixel operation was
not
DACinput[chan] = cmap[chan][pixeldata[chan]]
but rather
DACinput[chan] = cmap[sw2[chan]][pixdata[sw1[sw2[chan]]]]
This is trivially done in a pixel shader on modern cards.
Next?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
9 Oct
9 Oct
7:40 p.m.
Such as?
Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices available ever.
Here is a function that "the fanciest devices available ever" can not do:
Intergraph marketed VAXes as servers - 8550s, I think. They had custom
disk controllers that had processing engines to search the disks for
graphics primitives, independent of the VAX.
No one knows why.
--
Will
10 Oct
10 Oct
9:36 a.m.
In article <e1d20d630710091940u220207c4hdee5f0816f5a7c26 at mail.gmail.com>,
"William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
Its not a graphics feature.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
Such as?
Today's graphics cards are the fanciest devices available ever.
Here is a function that "the fanciest devices available ever" can not do:
Intergraph marketed VAXes as servers - 8550s, I think. They had custom
disk controllers that had processing engines to search the disks for
graphics primitives, independent of the VAX. 
10:43 a.m.
On Oct 9, 2007, at 5:26 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
PPL Video Disk (A special hard disk that stored video
as an FM signal,
one frape per track. COlour output, rack of boards to control it.
Linked
to a DR11-B again)
Wow...that sounds like fun!
Does the AMT DAP count :-) An SIMD machine with a
graphics output that
links to a DR11-W
That also sounds like fun.
Years ago, I had an AED 767, which I suppose was a cross between a
graphics subsystem and a graphics terminal. It was a 2U rackmount
chassis to which one connected a keyboard and monitor, and it had a
DMA port which connected to (in my case) a dual-width Qbus card in a
PDP-11. I had lots and lots of fun with that setup. I have no idea
what happened to it (this was ~1986) and would love to get my hands
on another one. Has anyone else worked on those?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
6284
days inactive
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days old
21 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
arcarlini＠iee.org -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
davis＠saw.net -
emu＠e-bbes.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
rivie＠ridgenet.net -
silent700＠gmail.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com