The VT640 Retro-Graphics, originally known as the VT100 Retro-Graphics, is an expansion board that was developed by Digital Engineering, Inc., for Digital Equipment Corporation's popular VT100 terminal, allowing it to be used as a graphics terminal capable of a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels. Digital Engineering introduced the VT640 in September 1980 as the second in their line of Retro-Graphics text-to-graphics-terminal conversion boards. [1]
The VT640 board displays graphics at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels on the VT100's monochrome, green-phosphor CRT. The board boasts full graphical compatibility with the Tektronix 4010 and featured the ability to plot individual points on the screen as well as solid, dotted, and dashed lines based on vector instructions, as well as the ability to selectively erase portions of the screen and change the size of text characters on the fly. The VT640 could work with Tektronix's Plot 10 CAD software and ISSCO's Tellagraf chart-making software and Tellaplan report generator. [2] An optional light pen allows the VT100 with the VT640 board installed to emulate the 4010 in the latter's graphic input mode. [1]
Digital Engineering reportedly sold millions of dollars worth of the VT640 and other Retro-Graphics products within the first year of availability. [1] A large institutional user of the VT640 in 1983 was the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), who retrofitted 200 of their VT100s with VT640 boards. LANL used the VT640 to render geometrically complex models of technologies such as nuclear reactors and check for visually obvious errors in the models before they are ready to be subjected to simulations. [3] Another large customer of the VT640 was the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, who used it to display the output of interferometers during mechanical stress and strain measurements conducted on the materials used as the skin of their aircraft. [4] [5] In around 1983, New England Digital began equipping their Synclavier II musical sampler–synthesizer workstation with VT640-equipped VT100s. [6]
Digital Engineering released an update to the VT640 in 1981 in the form of the VT640S, spread across three expansion boards. [7] Digital Engineering went out of business by 1986. [8] : 64
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. The term can now refer to the computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector, or the 640 × 480 resolution characteristic of the VGA hardware.
The VT220 is a computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in November 1983. The VT240 added monochrome ReGIS vector graphics support to the base model, while the VT241 did the same in color. The 200 series replaced the successful VT100 series, providing more functionality in a much smaller unit with a much smaller and lighter keyboard. Like the VT100, the VT200 series implemented a large subset of ANSI X.364. Among its major upgrades was a number of international character sets, as well as the ability to define new character sets.
The Tektronix 4010 series was a family of text-and-graphics computer terminals based on storage-tube technology created by Tektronix. Several members of the family were introduced during the 1970s, the best known being the 11-inch 4010 and 19-inch 4014, along with the less popular 25-inch 4016. They were widely used in the computer-aided design market in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Storage tubes are a class of cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) that are designed to hold an image for a long period of time, typically as long as power is supplied to the tube.
Direct-view bistable storage tube (DVBST) was an acronym used by Tektronix to describe their line of storage tubes. These were cathode ray tubes (CRT) that stored information written to them using an analog technique inherent in the CRT and based upon the secondary emission of electrons from the phosphor screen itself. The resulting image was visible in the continuously glowing patterns on the face of the CRT.
The VT50 is a CRT-based computer terminal that was introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in July 1974. It provided a display with 12 rows and 80 columns of upper-case text, and used an expanded set of control characters and forward-only scrolling based on the earlier VT05. DEC documentation of the era refers to the terminals as the DECscope, a name that was otherwise almost never seen.
Professional Graphics Controller is a graphics card manufactured by IBM for PCs. It consists of three interconnected PCBs, and contains its own processor and memory. The PGC was, at the time of its release, the most advanced graphics card for the IBM XT and aimed for tasks such as CAD.
The ADM-3A was an influential early video display terminal, introduced in 1976. It was manufactured by Lear Siegler and had a 12-inch screen displaying 12 or 24 lines of 80 characters. It set a new industry low single unit price of $995. Its "dumb terminal" nickname came from some of the original trade publication advertisements. It quickly became commercially successful because of the rapid increase of computer communications speeds, and because of new minicomputer and microcomputer systems released to the market which required inexpensive operator consoles.
The Tektronix 4050 is a series of three desktop computers produced by Tektronix in the late 1970s through the early 1980s. The display technology is similar to the Tektronix 4010 terminal, using a storage tube display to avoid the need for video RAM. They are all-in-one designs with the display, keyboard, CPU and DC300 tape drive in a single desktop case. They also include a GPIB parallel bus interface for controlling lab and test equipment as well as connecting to external peripherals. A simple operating system and BASIC interpreter are included in ROM.
A vector monitor, vector display, or calligraphic display is a display device used for computer graphics up through the 1970s. It is a type of CRT, similar to that of an early oscilloscope. In a vector display, the image is composed of drawn lines rather than a grid of glowing pixels as in raster graphics. The electron beam follows an arbitrary path, tracing the connected sloped lines rather than following the same horizontal raster path for all images. The beam skips over dark areas of the image without visiting their points.
A monochrome monitor is a type of computer monitor in which computer text and images are displayed in varying tones of only one color, as opposed to a color monitor that can display text and images in multiple colors. They were very common in the early days of computing, from the 1960s through the 1980s, before color monitors became widely commercially available. They are still widely used in applications such as computerized cash register systems, owing to the age of many registers. Green screen was the common name for a monochrome monitor using a green "P1" phosphor screen; the term is often misused to refer to any block mode display terminal, regardless of color, e.g., IBM 3279, 3290.
The VT320 is an ANSI standard computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1987. The VT320 is the text-only version, while the VT330 adds monochrome ReGIS, Sixel and Tektronix 4010 graphics, and the VT340 adds color.
The Tektronix 4105 was a video terminal introduced by Tektronix in 1983. It could be used as a conventional text terminal supporting the ANSI escape codes of the VT102 or the VT52, as well as a graphics terminal using their own Tektronix 4010 series vector graphics. In graphics mode resolution was relatively limited, at 480 by 360 pixels, but it added a wide variety of new commands to the original 4010 set, including up to eight colors on the screen. The color commands would become a standard in their own right, and is supported by most terminal emulators supporting the Tek 4010 series.
Integrated Software Systems Corporation (ISSCO), doing business as ISSCO Graphics, was an American software developer and publisher based in San Diego, California, and active from 1970 to 1986. They were best known for their enterprise graphics software packages, including Tellagraf, CueChart and Disspla.
The Personal System/2 Model 30 and Personal System/2 Model 30 286 are IBM's entry-level desktop computers in their Personal System/2 (PS/2) family of personal computers. As opposed to higher-end entries in the PS/2 line which use Micro Channel bus architecture, the Model 30 features an Industry Standard Architecture bus, allowing it to use expansion cards from its direct predecessors, the PC/XT and the PC/AT. The original PS/2 Model 30 is built upon the Intel 8086 microprocessor clocked at 8 MHz; the Model 30 286 features the Intel 80286 clocked at 10 MHz.
Aox Inc. was a privately run American technology corporation founded by Michael and Linda Aronson in 1978. Over the course of its 22-year lifespan, the company chiefly developed software and hardware for IBM's PC and compatibles, for the Personal System/2, and for the Macintosh. In its twilight years, the company designed multimedia and teleconferencing devices and chip designs. Aox was founded after Michael Aronson graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate in physics; he stayed with the company until 2000, when he incorporated EndPoints Inc. and switched to full-time fabless semiconductor design.
CoreCard Corporation is an American financial technology company based in Norcross, Georgia. Before 2021, the company was named Intelligent Systems Corporation and once sold portable computers, video terminals, expansion cards, and other peripherals through a variety of manufacturing subsidiaries. Founded in 1973, the company restructured as a master limited partnership in 1987, becoming Intelligent Systems Master Limited Partnership.
Terak Corporation was an American computer company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company was among the first to market graphical workstations, with their most successful being the Terak 8510/a in 1977. After going public in 1983, the company was acquired by Sanders Associates, who placed it under their CalComp division.
Genoa Systems Corporation, later Genoa Electronics Corporation, was an American computer multimedia peripheral vendor based in San Jose, California, and active from 1984 to 2002. The company was once a prolific and well-known manufacturer of video cards and chipsets. They also dabbled in modems, tape drives, sound cards, and other peripheral expansion cards. The company was a founding member of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) and were instrumental in the development of Super VGA.
Actix Systems, Inc., was an American graphics adapter manufacturer active from 1990 to 1998 and based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company was founded by Stephen W. Cheng and initially specialized in a subset of graphics adapters known as GUI accelerators, becoming a major player in the field. Toward the mid-1990s the company began manufacturing more general-purpose adapters under their GraphicsEngine brand.
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