7 Apr
2013
7 Apr
'13
2:24 p.m.
I ran across some old computer art from the 1970's while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall. As I recall, Snoopy was probably the
most popular subject along with "space stuff." I just had to piece these old
posters together and see what I had printed back in 1981. It turns out that
at least 2 of them were from the Princeton University Computer Center Clinic
and done by Samuel P. Harbison in 1973. The third one of the Golden Gate
Bridge is huge (8 ft. wide and 6.5 ft. tall) and no credits were given. Here
are some photos of them for those that are interested:
Golden Gate Bridge (with a PAA airplane) - 96" x 78":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/GoldenGate.jpg
One Giant Leap (man on the moon) - 40" x 33":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/GiantLeap.jpg
The Moon - 59" x 55":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/Moon.jpg
7 Apr
7 Apr
5:13 p.m.
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
I ran across some old computer art from the 1970's
while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall. As I recall, Snoopy was probably the
most popular subject along with "space stuff." I just had to piece these old
posters together and see what I had printed back in 1981. It turns out that
at least 2 of them were from the Princeton University Computer Center Clinic
and done by Samuel P. Harbison in 1973.
...
Thanks for posting those, Craig. I hadn't seen the Golden Gate before
- I don't suppose you still have the card deck for that?
I tracked down Sam Harbison a couple of years ago, and he responded to
my note with a nice explanation of process he used:
http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ASCII/
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
8 Apr
8 Apr
12:01 a.m.
On 04/07/2013 11:24 AM, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
I ran across some old computer art from the 1970's
while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall.
IIRC, the Playboy Bunny was the most popular one that I saw. In those
days, not suitable for display at work, but a lot of people had copies
of the deck.
--Chuck
1:46 a.m.
On 4/7/13 10:01 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 04/07/2013 11:24 AM, craig at solomonson.net
wrote:
Heh heh! Some of the first computer porn available. :D
--
Dave Land
Land Computer Service
Check out my site at http://www.landcomp.net
I ran across some old computer art from the
1970's while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and
room
had a few posters hanging on the wall.
IIRC, the Playboy Bunny was the most popular one that I saw. In those
days, not suitable for display at work, but a lot of people had copies
of the deck.
--Chuck
7:10 a.m.
On 04/07/2013 11:01 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 04/07/2013 11:24 AM, craig at solomonson.net
wrote:
That was probably the one that I remember being routinely hurled around at
peoples' terminals (much later, early '90s) via the Unix write command.
I ran across some old computer art from the
1970's while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall.
IIRC, the Playboy Bunny was the most popular one that I saw. In those
days, not suitable for display at work, but a lot of people had copies of
the deck.
1:43 a.m.
On 4/7/13 12:24 PM, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
I ran across some old computer art from the 1970's
while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall. As I recall, Snoopy was probably the
most popular subject along with "space stuff." I just had to piece these old
posters together and see what I had printed back in 1981. It turns out that
at least 2 of them were from the Princeton University Computer Center Clinic
and done by Samuel P. Harbison in 1973. The third one of the Golden Gate
Bridge is huge (8 ft. wide and 6.5 ft. tall) and no credits were given. Here
are some photos of them for those that are interested:
Golden Gate Bridge (with a PAA airplane) - 96" x 78":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/GoldenGate.jpg
One Giant Leap (man on the moon) - 40" x 33":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/GiantLeap.jpg
The Moon - 59" x 55":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/Moon.jpg
Very cool stuff! Must have taken days, just to print those at the speeds
of the average daisy wheel printer in that time period. :)
(or teletype if that was the weapon of choice)
--
Dave Land
Land Computer Service
Check out my site at http://www.landcomp.net
3:47 a.m.
------ Original Message ------
From: "Dave Land" <xmechanic at landcomp.net>
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Sent: 08/04/2013 06:43:50
Subject: Re: Computer ASCII Text Art from the 1970's
On 4/7/13 12:24 PM, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
The line printer was the weapon of
choice. I seem to think 600
Lines/Minute is typical. So that is about 10 seconds per page. So
something like Santa's sleigh and Reindeer could be printed in a couple
of minutes. Watching something like that come off was almost hynotic...
I ran across some old computer art from the
1970's while sorting
through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and
room
had a few posters hanging on the wall. As I recall, Snoopy was
probably the
most popular subject along with "space stuff." I just had to piece
these old
posters together and see what I had printed back in 1981. It turns out
that
at least 2 of them were from the Princeton University Computer Center
Clinic
and done by Samuel P. Harbison in 1973. The third one of the Golden
Gate
Bridge is huge (8 ft. wide and 6.5 ft. tall) and no credits were
given. Here
are some photos of them for those that are interested:
Golden Gate Bridge (with a PAA airplane) - 96" x 78":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/GoldenGate.jpg
One Giant Leap (man on the moon) - 40" x 33":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/GiantLeap.jpg
The Moon - 59" x 55":
http://www.solomonson.net/computers/Moon.jpg
Very cool stuff! Must have taken days, just to print those at the
speeds of the average daisy wheel printer in that time period. :)
(or teletype if that was the weapon of choice)
-- Dave Land
Land Computer Service
Check out my site at http://www.landcomp.net
Dave
G4UGM
7:21 a.m.
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013, Dave Land wrote:
On 4/7/13 12:24 PM, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
The pictures done by Sam Harbison were specifically designed for the
IBM line printers of the time, such as the 1403:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1403
Even with overstrike, it wouldn't have taken long to produce an image.
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
I ran across some old computer art from the
1970's while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall. As I recall, Snoopy was probably the
most popular subject along with "space stuff." I just had to piece these
old
posters together and see what I had printed back in 1981. It turns out that
at least 2 of them were from the Princeton University Computer Center
Clinic
and done by Samuel P. Harbison in 1973. The third one of the Golden Gate
Bridge is huge (8 ft. wide and 6.5 ft. tall) and no credits were given.
Here
are some photos of them for those that are interested:
...
Very cool stuff! Must have taken days, just to print those at the speeds of
the average daisy wheel printer in that time period. :)
(or teletype if that was the weapon of choice) 
9:32 a.m.
Dave Land wrote:
Very cool stuff! Must have taken days, just to print those at the
speeds of
the average daisy wheel printer in that time period.
:) (or teletype
if that was
the weapon of choice)
Typically these were printed on high-speed line printers that ran from
600 to 1200 (or more) lines per minute.
At these speeds, these didn't take all that long to print. They did,
though, use up a lot of ribbon ink, which is why a lot of computer
operators didn't like it when users would spew these out to the (usually
located in the machine room) line printers. Many times, when I was an
operator, I would kill off jobs printing these to the printer simply
because of the wear and tear on the printer, and the ribbon use. I was
authorized to kill these kinds of print jobs for these reasons. The
jobs were pretty easy to identify by ear, as the printer would make
rather unusual noises when printing these kinds of things because of the
overprinting used to make the different shading.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
11 Apr
11 Apr
9:52 a.m.
At 01:24 PM 4/7/2013, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
I ran across some old computer art from the 1970's
while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall.
I'd love to find the original data behind the Mona Lisa that
was produced by CDC that was exhibited at VCF 2.0.
<http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg>http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg
- John
1:39 p.m.
http://www.vintage.org/exhibit99.html has a better picture of it from the
now CHM.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 8:52 AM, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote:
At 01:24 PM 4/7/2013, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
I ran across some old computer art from the
1970's while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and
room
had a few posters hanging on the wall.
I'd love to find the original data behind the Mona Lisa that
was produced by CDC that was exhibited at VCF 2.0.
<http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg>
http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg
- John
12 Apr
12 Apr
8:49 a.m.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 8:52 AM, John Foust <jfoust
at threedee.com> wrote:
> I'd love to find the original data behind the Mona Lisa that
> was produced by CDC that was exhibited at VCF 2.0.
>
> <http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg>
> http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg
>
I have a monalisa in these ascii art files. Its a two printout wide
overstrike.
No idea if it is the same one.
http://www.pdp8online.com/ftp/ascii_art/
9:15 a.m.
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013, David Gesswein wrote:
Dave, the Mona Lisa on your site isn't the same as the "Mona by the
Numbers" version. Here's the one I printed from your file:
http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ASCII/Mona.jpg
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
On Thu, Apr
11, 2013 at 8:52 AM, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote:
> I'd love to find the original data behind the Mona Lisa that
> was produced by CDC that was exhibited at VCF 2.0.
>
> <http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg>
> http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg
>
I have a monalisa in these ascii art files. Its a two printout wide
overstrike.
No idea if it is the same one.
http://www.pdp8online.com/ftp/ascii_art/ 
11 Apr
11 Apr
3:30 p.m.
On 4/11/13 7:52 AM, John Foust wrote:
At 01:24 PM 4/7/2013, craig at solomonson.net wrote:
Here's a Wikipedia link that has some interesting stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art
--
Dave Land
Land Computer Service
Check out my site at http://www.landcomp.net
I ran across some old computer art from the
1970's while sorting through
some old boxes in storage. It seems like nearly every computer lab and room
had a few posters hanging on the wall.
I'd love to find the original data behind the Mona Lisa that
was produced by CDC that was exhibited at VCF 2.0.
<http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg>http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/monaCHC.jpg
- John
4119
days inactive
4124
days old
13 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
barythrin＠gmail.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
craig＠solomonson.net -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
djg＠pdp8online.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us -
rickb＠bensene.com -
xmechanic＠landcomp.net