2022 – things that didn’t quite make the cut

We covered quite a bit of retro tech this year, but there are a few things we didn’t talk about that are still worth a mention.

Let’s start with the automotive world. One of the more unusual vehicles to ever be produced in quantity is the DUKW (colloquially called the “Duck”), a six-wheel drive amphibious vehicle designed during World War II and manufactured by General Motors from 1942 to 1945. Excelling in amphibious attacks and traversing beaches, the DUKW could carry supplies or troops in a wide variety of environments. 21,000 of these machines were built, and some are still in use as tourist attractions today.

Where the DUKW was a bit of a barge, the Volkswagen Phaeton – introduced in 2002 – was a different type of barge. A large luxury car, sharing some of its DNA with Bentleys, the Phaeton was a rare entry into the luxury car market for the Volkswagen marque. Elegant and very understated, the Phaeton was a very discrete vehicle which gained some fans, but most luxury buyers were not interested and it wasn’t a sales success even though production continued until 2016. Today, the Phaeton is an extremely inexpensive buy for what it is, but it can be prone to enormous garage bills if it goes wrong.

From real-world cars to a fictional one – the Knight Industries Two Thousand (or “KITT” for short) was one of the stars of the 1982 TV Show “Knight Rider”. Based on a Pontiac Trans Am, KITT featured its own AI system which was capable of self-driving, speech recognition and synthesis, in-car communications (all of which are available today) and… errr… well a load of stuff that frankly isn’t. 23 KITT cars were made for filming, but most of these were destroyed. A handful of originals survive, but you are most likely to come across a replica.

DUKW, Volkswagen Phaeton, KITT Replica

Computers and cars came together in a different way with the 1982 Namco game, Pole Position. One of the first 16-bit arcade games, Pole Position offered unrivalled gameplay for a racing game, usually coming in a sit-down version with a proper steering wheel, pedals and gear shifter. The highest-grossing game of 1983, the game was officially ported to post microcomputer platforms of the time with many unofficial clones. 

Gaming was big in 1982, one mostly forgotten console that was launched that year was the ColecoVision. Selling strongly at launch due the bundled Donkey Kong game, this Z80-based system faded quickly and was out of production by 1985. Quite collectable today, a ColecoVision in good condition with games and accessories can cost you several hundred pounds.

Games consoles became popular in the 1980s, but the very first console was the Magnavox Odyssey launched in 1972. The basic but playable games were enhanced with accessories such as cards, dice and screen overlays. 350,000 Odyssey systems were sold over three years, today these are also very collectable with prices ranging from hundreds to thousands of pounds.

Pole Position, ColecoVision, Magnavox Odyssey

Taking another step backwards, 1962 saw the world’s first computer-controlled factory running on the Ferranti Argus industrial computer platform. Argus was originally designed for military applications, but it found its true strength in running as an industrial controller. Development continued into the 1980s, seeing use in everything from oil production to telecommunications, and importantly also in controlling nuclear power stations where they are still in use today.

Another technology designed originally for military use was the frequency-hopping spread spectrum. The concept was originally patented in 1942 as a way of preventing radio-guided torpedoes from being jammed by the enemy. A paper tape in the torpedo and guidance system allowed the radio frequency to change in a predetermined way, avoiding enemy jamming. This technology eventually found itself into Bluetooth and WiFi communications. Although this all sounds very dry, the inventor was Austrian-born actress Hedy Lamarr, who in addition to being one of the greatest actresses of her era was also a talented inventor.

While we are on the subject of war and weapons, the Gatling Gun was the world’s first widely-used machine gun, in service from 1862 with the US Army and finding its way into use worldwide until the early 20th century. The Gatling Gun marked the beginning of industrialised warfare and a technological arms race that continues to this day.

1970s Ferranti Argus system, Hedy Lamarr, Gatling Gun

120 years later, 1982 saw another technological race as the computer systems evolved rapidly in every market from home users to research institutions. One of the leading companies of the time was Digital Equipment Corporation (usually known as “DEC” or just “Digital”). The DEC Rainbow was an attempt to compete for the same market as the IBM PC, running on both a Zilog Z80 and Intel 8088 processor, the Rainbow could run either CP/M or MS-DOS. Despite the “Rainbow” name, the machine was monochrome only by default, outputting to a monitor very similar to a VT220. Despite the support of one of the biggest names in the industry, it was not a success except for the iconic LK201 keyboard which was widely emulated.

Where the Rainbow was an attempt to create a new microcomputer from scratch, the DEC Professional was an attempt to shrink the PDP-11 into a desktop package. Although a promising idea, poor execution and market indifference let to its failure.

One of the more advanced machines of the time was the DISER Lilith, launched commercially in 1982 after being used as a research platform for a couple of years. Unusually, the Lilith ran Modula-2 and has a large portrait graphical display. Based in part on work done on the Xerox Alto, the Lilith was probably too advanced to be a sales success but remained influential, especially the mouse design which later influenced the first mice designed by Logitech.

If PDP-11s and the Lilith just weren’t powerful enough and you had very, very deep pockets you migth consider the Cray X-MP, launched in 1982 at an approximate starting price of $15 million. For that you got not only the fastest computer in the world, but also one of the most remarkable looks with a central processor core that looked like nothing else – complete with padded seats. The X-MP was a success, and there were a number of successors. Today, Cray is part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

DEC Rainbow, DEC Professional running as a VAX Conole, Lilith Prototype, Cray X-MP

The X-MP was a niche but successful product, as was the Bloomberg Terminal which was originally launched in December 1982. A specialist system aimed at stock market traders, the original terminal was a simple device that could connect to any type of financial data that Bloomberg could make available. Several generations followed, built on custom hardware and software. Today the Bloomberg terminal is still available, but the latest generation will cost you around $2000 per month.

Aimed at a rather broader market – which it failed to reach – the Jupiter Ace also ended up being popular with a very specific niche. Somewhat similar to the ZX81 in terms of hardware, the Ace had the unusual feature of running Forth as a programming language instead of BASIC. Forth was very well suited to simple computers, however it turned out that most customers wanted to learn BASIC instead. Despite making a splash at launch, sales were low and production ended in 1984. Today the Ace is very collectable with good examples selling for £1500 or even more.

1982 was a good year for computer systems that might have hit the big time had circumstances been different. The Sord M5 is one of those, an elegant Japanese system running on a Z80 with 16Kb of RAM, colour graphics and sound plus a cartridge slot. The M5 sold well in Japan, and saw some popularity in the UK (as the CGL M5) and Czechoslovakia. Locally-produced derivatives of the M5 also sold well in South Korea. Although it showed promise, by the time it hit the shops the market was becoming crowded and it didn’t last long. Working M5s in good condition can sell for £500 or more, and cartridges are worth around £50 to £100 or so.

2010s Bloomberg Terminal, Jupiter Ace, Sord M5

Not all computing innovations are welcome. The world’s first computer virus – Elk Cloner – was also invented in 1982 by Rick Skrenta. This boot sector virus infected Apple II floppy disks, although it usually did no real harm.

One other technology product to come to market in 1982 was the CD player. The world’s first model was the Sony CDP-101 launched in Japan in October. In the rest of the world, the Philips CD100 was the first available model. Sales were slow at first due to the cost, but by the late 1990s and early part of the 2000s the CD player became the most popular medium for music.

Elk Cloner, Sony CDP-101

A decade later, 1992 was a pretty good year for technology too. This was the year that Windows 3.1 launched, a significant upgrade to the first usable version of Windows – Windows 3.0 launched in 1990 – version 3.1 added more polish and stability. For many people, Windows 3.1 was their very first experience of Microsoft Windows.

Perhaps not many Windows machines of that era are memorable, but the IBM ThinkPad launched in 1992 had a reputation for good design, robustness and reliability. A strong seller for IBM, especially to corporate customers, the ThinkPad line was eventually acquired by Lenovo in 2005 and is still made today.

An ideal peripheral to complement your Windows-based laptop might be the HP LaserJet 4. An exceptionally reliable laser printer, it was also more compact than previous models, easier to maintain, faster and gave better quality printouts. The LaserJet 4 was capable of producing over a million pages during its individual lifetime, and although parts did wear out they could be easily replaced. It was easy to connect to a LAN via an optional network card, or you could use a parallel cable. Although seemingly obsolete today, aftermarket spares kits are still available indicating that there are still LaserJet 4 series printers still in use.

Windows 3.1 box, IBM ThinkPad, HP LaserJet 4

Not every computer of the time was a Windows or Intel-based computer. The Atari Falcon030 was the final evolution of the once-popular Atari ST line. Based on a Motorola 68030 CPU with a Motorola 56001 DSP supporting sound and graphics, the Falcon030 made a good games machine, was excellent for music and MIDI interfacing and came with a wide variety of expansion options. However, Atari was struggling and the Falcon030 was dropped just a year later. Around the same time Atari was working on the Falcon040, a 68040 power version. The Falcon is another collectable system, with prices for a good example being well in excess of £1000.

DEC was also coming up with innovative products in 1992. The DEC Alpha 21064 CPU was a powerful RISC processor designed for workstations and more powerful systems. Capable of much faster performance than Intel’s rival CPUs, the Alpha architecture saw some success in the 1990s but it faded away after DEC was bought out, first by Compaq and then by HP.

Atari Falcon030, DEC Alpha 21064

Another decade later to 2002, and mobile phones were becoming popular, and some of these were beginning to blur the line between a phone and a computer with the introduction of smartphones. The Sony Ericsson P800 was a Symbian-based device with a stylus-driven touchscreen and a camera, which is effectively one of the ancestors of modern smartphones today. Due to the high price and complexity, it didn’t sell in huge numbers but it did appeal to those who could see the advantage of having a computer in your pocket.

If you wanted something simpler and more robust, you could try the rubbery Nokia 5100. A weird-looking thing by modern standards, the 5100 comes from a golden age of phone design where every new model had its own distinctive looks. The 5100's key selling point was its robustness, although most Nokia phones of that era seemed pretty indestructible. 

Technology was coming to other more mundane devices as well. The Roomba is an autonomous robot vacuum cleaner, first introduced in 2002. Capable of cleaning a floor by itself and then returning to its dock to recharge, the Roomba is more of a pet than a domestic appliance – sometimes needing rescuing when it has gotten itself stuck on something. Twenty years of development have made Roombas even smarter.

Sony Ericsson P800, Nokia 5100, 2002-era Roomba

Finally… well, a different sort of invention altogether. 120 years ago in 1902, the Teddy Bear was invented. Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, the teddy became the most popular type of soft toy of all time. Go and cuddle one right now.

1903 Teddy Bear

Image credits:
DUKW: 270865 via Flickr - CC BY-ND 2.0
VW Phaeton: Greg Gjerdingen via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 2.0
KITT Replica: Interceptor73 via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 2.0
Namco Pole Position: Steve McFarland via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
ColecoVision: Georges Seguinia via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Magnavox Odyssey: Jesmar via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Ferranti Argus 700: Rain Rabbit via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
Hedy Lamarr: MGM via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Gatling Gun: Max Smith via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
DEC Rainbow 100: David Alcubierre via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
DEC Professional running as VAX Console: Michael L. Umbricht via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Prototype Lilith: Tomislav Medak via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
Cray XMP: Rama via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 2.0 FR
2010s Bloomberg Terminal: E.W. Scripps School of Journalism - CC BY-NC 2.0
Jupiter Ace: Soupmeister via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Sord M5: Staffan Vilcans via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Elk Cloner: Richard Skrenta via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Sony CDP-101: Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Microsoft Windows 3.1: Darklanlan via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
IBM ThinkPad: Jarek Piórkowski via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
HP LaserJet 4: DuffDudeX1 via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Atari Falcon030: Wolfgang Stief via Flickr – CC0
DEC Alpha 21064: Dirk Oppelt via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Sony Ericsson P800: Sony Ericsson Press Release
Nokia 5100: Nokia Press Release
Roomba: Larry D Moore via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0
1903 Teddy Bear: Tim Evanson via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0

LINC (1962)

First delivered in March 1962

The LINC – short for Laboratory INstrument Computer - was one of the world's very first minicomputers, helping to break the computer out of the corporate machine room and making it available to individual departments, labs and (at a stretch) homes.

Designed at MIT for academic work, most LINC machines were built by Digital Equipment Corporation, who were based in Massachusetts as is MIT. By 1962, DEC had already launched the PDP-1 (another candidate for the world’s first minicomputer) but the LINC was considerably cheaper and more compact.

Based on a 12-bit architecture, one innovation with the LINC was the tape drive (the LINCtape) which could store up to 400Kb and allowed a slow but reliable form of random access storage (somewhat like a very slow disk drive). The LINCtape evolved into DECtape, a common feature on DEC’s PDP line.

Digibarn's LINC system

A small CRT could be used for output, and a rather clunky keyboard from Soroban Engineering (responsible for many computer keyboard of the same period) allowed input. Additional output could be made to a teletype, and the LINC could also be controlled by a set of rotary knobs which were essentially a precursor (pun intended) to the mouse.

The key application for the LINC was interfacing with lab equipment through the inbuilt A-to-D (analogue to digital) and D-to-A interfaces. This made the LINC a successful lab machine, although only 50 were built so it didn’t exactly change the world.

LINC exhibit at the Computer History Museum, California

Significantly though, the LINC may be the world’s first home computer. Programmer Mary Allen Wilkes had a LINC system installed in her home, something that would be unfeasible with the 730kg PDP-1. It would take another 15 years or so before home computers became something that you could just go to the local electronics store to buy..

The LINC architecture grew into the PDP-5, PDP-8, PDP-12 and DECmate well into the 1970s. In the end though, the 16-bit PDP-11 and 32-bit VAX architecture (which were unrelated) moved things forward from there.

Image credits:
Jonathan Assink via Flickr - CC BY-ND 2.0
Don DeBold via Flickr – CC BY 2.0

DEC PDP-1 (1960)

First unit shipped November 1960

In 1960, the Massachusetts firm Digital Equipment Corporation (typically known as “DEC” or just “Digital”) was just three years old. Founded by two ex-MIT engineers, DEC’s earliest products were small computing modules on cards that could be used in labs, the design of which was based on work originally done at MIT.

The company advanced quickly, and in 1959 it announced a minicomputer based on these modules, which they called the PDP-1. “PDP” stood for “Programmable Data Processor” – according to legend this was because DEC was afraid that IBM might sue if they called it a “computer”, but in reality it seems that this approach was because computer companies were regarded as high-risk for investors, where lab equipment companies were less so.

DEC PDP-1

Although clever and flexible in approach, the modules still consisted of individual transistors and other components soldered to a board. This meant that the overall system was quite large (weighing hundreds of kilograms). It was 36-bit computer with the equivalent of just 9.2Kb of memory, mass storage was provided by paper tape and output could be to a printer or weird circular CRT that had basically been transplanted from a radar system.

Prices started at $130,000 for a basic system (around a million dollars today) which made it a feasible purchase for well-funded labs, universities and tech-oriented companies. It was essentially a single-user system until the development of timesharing OSes such as the one from BBN. As a comparison, an IBM 7090 mainframe computer of the same era cost around $2.9 million ($20 million today), and although the PDP-1 was much less powerful it was much more flexible and it could be programmed to do things that were impossible on a tightly buttoned-down mainframe.

Things that you couldn’t do on a mainframe but could do on a PDP-1 included playing synthesised music and a key early video game – Spacewar!. A precursor of much later video games such as Asteroids, the game used the Type 30 vector display of the PDP-1 to show two opposing spacecraft fighting each other around the gravitational field of a sun. The Type 30’s long persistent phosphor added to the space-age gameplay and of course it became a major reason for people to book time on their department’s PDP-1 for (ahem) “research”.

Spacewar!

DEC were still a fledgling company, and although the PDP-1 was a success it only shipped 53 units. However, just five years later DEC was growing quickly and the 12-bit PDP-8 launched in 1965 shipped an astonishing 50,000 units over its lifetime, and five years after that the 16-bit PDP-11 eventually shipped 600,000 units. As an aside, DEC also made 36-bit and 32-bit computers in the 60s and 70s, to add to the confusion.

The architecture used in the PDP-1 turned out to be a dead end, ending in 1970 with the PDP-15. However, it helped start a revolution in small-scale computing which – after nearly two decades – allowed everybody who wanted one to have a computer on their desk. Unfortunately for DEC, they never could successfully transition from minis to micros, but that is another story.

Image credits:
M.Hawksey via Flickr – CC BY 2.0
Kenneth Lu via Flickr – CC BY 2.0

Digital VT05 and VT420 (1970 and 1990)

The video terminal is the unsung hero of the computing world. Often toiling aware in warehouse, factories, colleges, shops and other places out of the public eye, the video terminal was a dependable workhorse for decades… well into the era of the PC.

Arguably the king of the terminal market was Digital Equipment Corporation (“DEC” or just “Digital”) who made terminals that were attached to minicomputers or mainframes, where they could run a wide variety of centralised applications that typically ran on Unix or VMS boxes.

They comprised of not much more than a display, keyboard and serial interface – and although they were not always cheap to buy, they were certainly cheap to run with no moving parts and complete immunity to computer viruses and other malfeasance. You could plug one in and forget about it for years, and it would keep doing its job.

DEC VT05

The DEC VT05 was introduced in 1970 and was Digital’s first standalone raster video terminal. Sure, I could tell you that it was a bit of an upgrade from the glass teletype concept with a bit of cursor control thrown in but probably the thing about the VT05 that most people will notice is how it looks. Digital’s radical space-age design made it look like the terminal was leaping out of the work surface. Inside the system boards were slanted behind the CRT rather than subsequent models which were more conventional inside. It looked fantastic, but the downside was that the VT05 was 30 inches (76 centimetres) deep which meant that you’d likely have to re-engineer your working environment to put one in. At 55 pounds (25 kilograms) it was hardly a lightweight device, so you wouldn’t want to move it anyway.

It could only display uppercase characters, but the keyboard could enter both upper and lowercase. Quite how you were meant to tell what you were typing is a mystery. Maximum data transfer rate was 2400 baud. The VT05 had a video input so you could display other things on the monitor, and mix them together with the text. The VT05 was around for five years until the much more capable – and conventional – VT52 was launched.

DEC VT420

Fast forward twenty years and the direct descendant of the VT05 – the VT420 – is launched. Don’t expect two decade of development to count for all that much though, the VT420 was still conceptually the same thing. Unlike the VT05, the VT420 was a practical design with a separate keyboard and a monitor on a tilt-and-swivel stand that was supplied as standard (unlike previous versions). It weighed just 8kg so wasn’t a problem to move about a bit, and the ANSI character set that it supported allowed full cursor addressability and enough predefined graphics to make a nice user interface.

The VT420 also supported dual sessions, typically by using the two serial ports on the back. Not only could you interact with two utterly different systems, but you could also copy-and-paste between them. That might not seem like a big deal now, but back in 1990 most people still couldn’t paste data between applications on their PCs so it was kind of a big deal.

The data transfer rate was a speedy 38,400 baud using the compact phone-like MMJ sockets, the screen had a maximum capacity of 132 x 48 lines of text and the latest revision of DEC’s legendary keyboard – the LK401 – was almost perfect in every way except for the annoying lack of an Escape key.

Where the VT05 marked a point near the beginning of DEC’s journey, the VT420 marked a point near the end. The days of centralised minicomputers were starting to fade and throughout the 1990s PCs and Macs became more capable professional computing environments. The VT420 was a success but it lasted just three years before being replaced by the VT520 which was almost identical. DEC sold the entire terminal division in 1995 and they themselves were taken over by Compaq in 1998, who were then taken over by HP in 2002.

The VT range soldiered on with Boundless Technologies until 2003, and other manufacturers either closed down or shuttered production in the following years, including Wyse and Qume until there were none left.

Even though the manufacturing of terminals dried up, the computer systems that relied on them still exist. VT terminals are still in use around the world, but newer installations will typically rely on a PC with some terminal emulation software – a more complex and less reliable solution.

Today a DEC VT420 in good condition second-hand can cost a couple of hundred pounds, and maybe budget a thousand or so if you want to acquire a VT05. Of course terminal emulators can be had for less, a client such as PuTTY is free or Reflection is a more commercial offering.

Image credits:
Matthew Ratzloff via Flickr – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Adamantios via Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0

Digital (DEC) PDP-11

Well-appointed PDP-11 at TNMOC, Bletchley

Launched January 1970

The Digital PDP-11 is a computer you may not have heard of, but it was hugely influential in terms of hardware and even more so in the software that it helped to create.

Digital Equipment Corporation (typically known as DEC or Digital) was founded in 1957, first tinkering with electronics for laboratory environments and then producing a full computer system in 1959 with the PDP-1 minicomputer. Other models followed and DEC grew quickly through the 1960s with a wide range of new products including the very successful PDP-8.

The term “minicomputer” is rarely used these days, and by modern standard there was nothing mini about them. Often house in racks and sometimes filling a small room, minicomputers were shrunk down versions of the huge mainframe computers that tended to require their own building. Even as microcomputers became popular, minicomputers were much more powerful and made it easier for people to work collaboratively, these days their modern descendant would be a server. Typically you would access a minicomputer with a terminal such as a VT52.

Time and technology move on and by the late 1960s the computer industry started to settle on 8, 16 and 32 bit architecture (based on an 8-bit word size) where Digital was mostly producing 12, 18 and 36 bit machines (based on a 6-bit word size). In part this change happened because the computer industry was starting to standardise on the 7-bit ASCII character set.

In January 1970, DEC launched its first 16-bit minicomputer – the PDP-11. Combining the extensive experience of the company from the previous decade (both good and bad), the PDP-11 was a high usable and expandable system. A key feature of the PDP-11 was that it was relatively easy to program, especially when it came to using peripherals (initially on the Unibus bus and later Q-Bus). And peripherals were available from DEC in abundance, including disk drives, tapes drives, printers and terminals.

From the outset the PDP-11 was a huge success, starting with the original 11/20 and 11/15 models in 1970 and then developing along with advancing technologies to become smaller and more powerful, ending with the 11/93 and 11/94 in 1990 (which were in production until 1997). But PDP-11 systems ended up being squeezed into other “smart” peripherals too such as robot arms and when added to a terminal such as the VT100 they could make a compact desktop version (such as the VT103). DEC even tried to make a PDP-11 to compete with the IBM PC with the DEC Professional range.

Perhaps confusingly DEC had many operating systems for the PDP-11, notably RT-11. However the most famous OS that the PDP-11 is famous for is Unix – a platform that was developed at Bell Labs in response to the complex Multics OS. In fact, Unix was tied to the PDP-11 platform until 1978 when it was finally ported to a fairly obscure system called the Interdata 8/32.

Unix became an enormous success – it took a while – and today descendants and variants of that OS power smartphones, servers and personal computers worldwide. But the PDP-11 hardware too was hugely influential, directly inspiring 1970s processors such as the Motorola 68000 and Intel 8086.

DEC sold hundreds of thousands of PDP-11s while it was in production, making it possibly the most popular minicomputer ever made. The 32-bit DEC VAX launched in 1977 was meant to be the next logical step, however both the PDP-11 and VAX ended up being sold in parallel.

In terms of both software and hardware the PDP-11 was a hugely significant device, even if most people may never have seen one. Surprisingly it seems some are still in use, and there’s a brisk trade in parts and components on the second hard market.

Image credit: Loz Pycock via Flickr

Digital (DEC) VT100 (1978)

DEC VT100

Launched August 1978

Although the late 1970s saw the birth of the microcomputer revolution, most people in businesses and academia still used a big mainframe computer or minicomputer (such as a DEC VAX) connected to a dumb terminal, for example the DEC VT52 or Lear-Siegler ADM3A.

Early terminals were nothing more than glass teletypes – essentially replacing a box of fanfold paper with a screen. The next big advance was to make the cursor addressable, in other words to be able to place text wherever you wanted on the screen. And it was the VT52 (launched in 1975) which introduced a lot of these features to customers for the first time.

The Digital Equipment Corporation (known as DEC or just Digital for short) wanted to develop the dumb terminal further, and in August 1978 they launched the DEC VT100 which pushed the boundaries ever further with support for ANSI X3.64 codes which pretty much allowed you to do anything you liked text-wise, plus it came with some rudimentary block graphics which were very handy for designing on-screen forms.

This was sophisticated stuff for the late 1970s, and the key breakthrough here was the use of an Intel 8080 (or later the 8085) microprocessor to do the hard work. Depending on variant, the 12” display could show 80 x 24 characters or up to 132 x 24 characters for a top-of-the-range version. The relatively fast 19200 baud serial interface was enough to display a full screen of 80 column text in just a second. And unlike many earlier terminals, the keyboard was attached to the main unit with a curly cable, so you could move it about to whatever position you found comfortable.

As with the VT52, the VT100 came in quite a big case which could allow extra boards to be added, turning the platform into a graphics terminal (with the VT125) or even a full-blown microcomputer with the VT180. Printers could even be attached to the back of the terminal, so you could easily have your own printer rather than sharing with the rest of the office.

The V100 family was a significant success at the time, and it and its successors sold six million units worldwide, until finally going out of production in 2017 with the VT520. One of the reasons that the VT terminal survived so long against more capable PCs was the low running cost – there was very little to go wrong, no moving parts and VT terminals were immune to things like computer viruses. VT terminals are still in use worldwide in locations where these things are important, such as warehouses.

But perhaps more commonly these days, pretty much any terminal program emulates a VT100 by default, including the command line interface on Macs and Linux systems. Perhaps more importantly, the VT100 paved the way for modern computer applications. Connecting one to a modern computer system is a bit tricky as VT terminals primarily use a serial interface, but if you get your hands on a terminal server or media converter you might be able to make it run on Ethernet, if you are up for the challenge..

Image credit: Wolfgang Stief via Flickr

Spam (1978)

No, not SPAM but spam. Junk email. That sort of thing. You've probably seen it. You might even know that the name comes from a Monty Python sketch. But you might not know that the first spam message is commonly believed to have been sent forty years ago this month. And here it is:

Date:  1 May 1978 1233-EDT
From: THUERK at DEC-MARLBORO
Subject: ADRIAN@SRI-KL
To:   DDAY at SRI-KL, DAY at SRI-KL, DEBOER at UCLA-CCN,
To:   WASHDC at SRI-KL, LOGICON at USC-ISI, SDAC at USC-ISI,
To:   DELDO at USC-ISI, DELEOT at USC-ISI, DELFINO at USC-ISI,
To:   DENICOFF at USC-ISI, DESPAIN at USC-ISI, DEUTSCH at SRI-KL,
To:   DEUTSCH at PARC-MAXC, EMY at CCA-TENEX, DIETER at USC-ISIB,
To:   DINES at AMES-67, MERADCON at SRI-KL, EPG-SPEC at SRI-KA,
To:   DIVELY at SRI-KL, DODD at USC-ISI, DONCHIN at USC-ISIC,
To:   JED at LLL-COMP, DORIN at CCA-TENEX, NYU at SRI-KA,
To:   DOUGHERTY at USC-ISI, PACOMJ6 at USC-ISI,
To:   DEBBY at UCLA-SECURITY, BELL at SRI-KL, JHANNON at SRI-KA,
To:   DUBOIS at USC-ISI, DUDA at SRI-KL, POH at USC-ISI,
To:   LES at SU-AI, EAST at BBN-TENEX, DEASTMAN at USC-ECL,
To:   EBISU at I4-TENEX, NAC at USC-ISIE, ECONOMIDIS at I4-TENEX,
To:   WALSH at SRI-KL, GEDWARDS at SRI-KL, WEDWARDS at USC-ISI,
To:   NUSC at SRI-KL, RM at SU-AI, ELKIND at PARC-MAXC,
To:   ELLENBY at PARC-MAXC, ELLIS at PARC-MAXC, ELLIS at USC-ISIB,
To:   ENGELBART at SRI-KL, ENGELMORE at SUMEX-AIM,
To:   ENGLISH at PARC-MAXC, ERNST at I4-TENEX,
To:   ESTRIN at MIT-MULTICS, EYRES at USC-ISIC,
To:   FAGAN at SUMEX-AIM, FALCONER at SRI-KL,
To:   DUF at UCLA-SECURITY, FARBER at RAND-UNIX, PMF at SU-AI,
To:   HALFF at USC-ISI, RJF at MIT-MC, FEIERBACH at I4-TENEX,
To:   FEIGENBAUM at USC-ISI, FEINLER at SRI-KL,
To:   FELDMAN at SUMEX-AIM, FELDMAN at SRI-KL, FERNBACH at LLL-COMP,
To:   FERRARA at RADC-MULTICS, FERRETTI at SRI-KA,
To:   FIALA at PARC-MAXC, FICKAS at USC-ISIC, AFIELD at I4-TENEX,
To:   FIKES at PARC-MAXC, REF at SU-AI, FINK at MIT-MULTICS,
To:   FINKEL at USC-ISIB, FINN at USC-ISIB, AFGWC at BBN-TENEX,
To:   FLINT at SRI-KL, WALSH at SRI-KL, DRXAN at SRI-KA,
To:   FOX at SRI-KL, FRANCESCHINI at MIT-MULTICS,
To:   SAI at USC-ISIC, FREDRICKSON at RAND-RCC, ETAC at BBN-TENEXB,
To:   FREYLING at BBN-TENEXE, FRIEDLAND at SUMEX-AIM,
To:   FRIENDSHUH at SUMEX-AIM, FRITSCH at LLL-COMP, ME at SU-AI,
To:   FURST at BBN-TENEXB, FUSS at LLL-COMP, OP-FYE at USC-ISIB,
To:   SCHILL at USC-ISIC, GAGLIARDI at USC-ISIC,
To:   GAINES at RAND-UNIX, GALLENSON at USC-ISIB,
To:   GAMBLE at BBN-TENEXE, GAMMILL at RAND-UNIX,
To:   GANAN at USC-ISI, GARCIA at SUMEX-AIM,
To:   GARDNER at SUMEX-AIM, MCCUTCHEN at SRI-KL,
To:   GARDNER at MIT-MULTICS, GARLICK at SRI-KL,
To:   GARVEY at SRI-KL, GAUTHIER at USC-ISIB,
To:   USGS-LIA at BBN-TENEX, GEMOETS at I4-TENEX,
To:   GERHART at USC-ISIB, GERLA at USC-ISIE, GERLACH at I4-TENEX,
To:   GERMAN at HARV-10, GERPHEIDE at SRI-KA, DANG at SRI-KL,
To:   GESCHKE at PARC-MAXC, GIBBONS at CMU-10A,
To:   GIFFORD.COMPSYS at MIT-MULTICS, JGILBERT at BBN-TENEXB,
To:   SGILBERT at BBN-TENEXB, SDAC at USC-ISI,
To:   GILLOGLY at RAND-UNIX, STEVE at RAND-UNIX,
To:   GLEASON at SRI-KL, JAG;BIN(1525) at UCLA-CCN,
To:   GOLD at LL-11, GOLDBERG at USC-ISIB, GOLDGERG at SRI-KL,
To:   GROBSTEIN at SRI-KL, GOLDSTEIN at BBN-TENEXB,
To:   DARPM-NW at BBN-TENEXB, GOODENOUGH at USC-ISIB,
To:   GEOFF at SRI-KL, GOODRICH at I4-TENEX, GOODWIN at USC-ISI,
To:   GOVINSKY at SRI-KL, DEAN at I4-TENEX, TEG at MIT-MULTICS,
To:   CCG at SU-AI, EPG-SPEC at SRI-KA, GRISS at USC-ECL,
To:   BJG at RAND-UNIX, MCCUTCHEN at SRI-KL, GROBSTEIN at SRI-KL,
To:   MOBAH at I4-TENEX, GUSTAFSON at USC-ISIB, GUTHARY at SRI-KL,
To:   GUTTAG at USC-ISIB, GUYTON at RAND-RCC,
To:   ETAC-AD at BBN-TENEXB, HAGMANN at USC-ECL, HALE at I4-TENEX,
To:   HALFF at USC-ISI, DEHALL at MIT-MULTICS,
To:   HAMPEL at LLL-COMP, HANNAH at USC-ISI,
To:   NORSAR-TIP at USC-ISIC, SCRL at USC-ISI, HAPPY at SRI-KL,
To:   HARDY at SRI-KL, IMPACT at SRI-KL, KLH at SRI-KL,
To:   J33PAC at USC-ISI, HARRISON at SRI-KL, WALSH at SRI-KL,
To:   DRCPM-FF at BBN-TENEXB, HART at AMES-67, HART at SRI-KL,
To:   HATHAWAY at AMES-67, AFWL at I4-TENEX, BHR at RAND-UNIX,
To:   RICK at RAND-UNIX, DEBE at USC-ISIB, HEARN at USC-ECL,
To:   HEATH at UCLA-ATS, HEITMEYER at BBN-TENEX, ADTA at SRI-KA,
To:   HENDRIX at SRI-KL, CH47M at BBN-TENEXB, HILLIER at SRI-KL,
To:   HISS at I4-TENEX, ASLAB at USC-ISIC, HOLG at USC-ISIB,
To:   HOLLINGWORTH at USC-ISIB, HOLLOWAY at HARV-10,
To:   HOLMES at SRI-KL, HOLSWORTH at SRI-KA, HOLT at LLL-COMP,
To:   HOLTHAM at LL, DHOLZMAN at RAND-UNIX, HOPPER at USC-ISIC,
To:   HOROWITZ at USC-ISIB, VSC at USC-ISI, HOWARD at LLL-COMP,
To:   HOWARD at USC-ISI, PURDUE at USC-ISI, HUBER at RAND-RCC,
To:   HUNER at RADC-MULTICS, HUTSON at AMES-67, IMUS at USC-ISI,
To:   JACOBS at USC-ISIE, JACOBS at BBN-TENEXB,
To:   JACQUES at BBN-TENEXB, JARVIS at PARC-MAXC,
To:   JEFFERS at PARC-MAXC, JENKINS at PARC-MAXC,
To:   JENSEN at SRI-KA, JIRAK at SUMEX-AIM, NICKIE at SRI-KL,
To:   JOHNSON at SUMEX-AIM, JONES at SRI-KL, JONES at LLL-COMP,
To:   JONES at I4-TENEX, RLJ at MIT-MC, JURAK at USC-ECL,
To:   KAHLER at SUMEX-AIM, MWK at SU-AI, KAINE at USC-ISIB,
To:   KALTGRAD at UCLA-ATS, MARK at UCLA-SECURITY, RAK at SU-AI,
To:   KASTNER at USC-ISIB, KATT at USC-ISIB,
To:   UCLA-MNC at USC-ISI, ALAN at PARC-MAXC, KEENAN at USC-ISI,
To:   KEHL at UCLA-CCN, KELLEY at SRI-KL, BANANA at I4-TENEX,
To:   KELLOGG at USC-ISI, DDI at USC-ISI, KEMERY at SRI-KL,
To:   KEMMERER at UCLA-ATS, PARVIZ at UCLA-ATS, KING at SUMEX-AIM,
To:   KIRSTEIN at USC-ISI, SDC at UCLA-SECURITY,
To:   KLEINROCK at USC-ISI, KLEMBA at SRI-KL, CSK at USC-ISI,
To:   KNIGHT at SRI-KL, KNOX at USC-ISI, KODA at USC-ISIB,
To:   KODANI at AMES-67, KOOIJ at USC-ISI, KREMERS at SRI-KL,
To:   BELL at SRI-KL, KUNZELMAN at SRI-KL, PROJX at SRI-KL,
To:   LAMPSON at PARC-MAXC, SDL at RAND-UNIX, JOJO at SRI-KL,
To:   SDC at USC-ISI, NELC3030 at USC-ISI,
To:   LEDERBERG at SUMEX-AIM, LEDUC at SRI-KL, JSLEE at USC-ECL,
To:   JACOBS at USC-ISIE, WREN at USC-ISIB, LEMONS at USC-ISIB,
To:   LEUNG at SRI-KL, J33PAC at USC-ISI, LEVIN at USC-ISIB,
To:   LEVINTHAL at SUMEX-AIM, LICHTENBERGER at I4-TENEX,
To:   LICHTENSTEIN at USC-ISI, LIDDLE at PARC-MAXC,
To:   LIEB at USC-ISIB, LIEBERMAN at SRI-KL, STANL at USC-ISIE,
To:   LIERE at I4-TENEX, DOCB at USC-ISIC, LINDSAY at SRI-KL,
To:   LINEBARGER at AMES-67, LIPKIS at USC-ECL, SLES at USC-ISI,
To:   LIS at SRI-KL, LONDON at USC-ISIB, J33PAC at USC-ISI,
To:   LOPER at SRI-KA, LOUVIGNY at SRI-KL, LOVELACE at USC-ISIB,
To:   LUCANIC at SRI-KL, LUCAS at USC-ISIB, DCL at SU-AI,
To:   LUDLAM at UCLA-CCN, YNGVAR at SRI-KA, LYNCH at SRI-KL,
To:   LYNN at USC-ISIB, MABREY at SRI-KL, MACKAY at AMES-67,
To:   MADER at USC-ISIB, MAGILL at SRI-KL, KMAHONEY at BBN-TENEX,
To:   MANN at USC-ISIB, ZM at SU-AI, MANNING at USC-ISI,
To:   MANTIPLY at I4-TENEX, MARIN at I4-TENEX, SCRL at USC-ISI,
To:   HARALD at SRI-KA, GLORIA-JEAN at UCLA-CCN, MARTIN at USC-ISIC,
To:   WMARTIN at USC-ISI, GRM at RAND-UNIX, MASINTER at USC-ISI,
To:   MASON at USC-ISIB, MATHIS at SRI-KL, MAYNARD at USC-ISIC,
To:   MCBREARTY at SRI-KL, MCCALL at SRI-KA, MCCARTHY at SU-AI,
To:   MCCLELLAND at USC-ISI, DORIS at RAND-UNIX, MCCLURG at SRI-KL,
To:   JOHN at I4-TENEX, MCCREIGHT at PARC-MAXC, MCCRUMB at USC-ISI,
To:   DRXTE at SRI-KA
cc:   BPM at SU-AI

MCKINLEY@USC-ISIB
MMCM@SRI-KL
OT-ITS@SRI-KA
BELL@SRI-KL
MEADE@SRI-KL
MARTIN@USC-ISI
MERRILL@BBN-TENEX
METCALFE@PARC-MAXC
JMETZGER@USC-ISIB
MICHAEL@USC-ISIC
CMILLER@SUMEX-AIM
MILLER@USC-ISI
SCI@USC-ISI
MILLER@USC-ISIC
MITCHELL@PARC-MAXC
MITCHELL@USC-ISI
MITCHELL@SUMEX-AIM
MLM@SU-AI
JPDG@TENEXB
MOORE@USC-ISIB
WMORE@USC-ISIB
JAM@SU-AI
MORAN@PARC-MAXC
ROZ@SU-AI
MORGAN@USC-ISIB
MORRIS@PARC-MAXC
MORRIS@I4-TENEX
OT-ITS@SRI-KA
LISA@USC-ISIB
MOSHER@SRI-KL
MULHERN@USC-ISI
MUNTZ;BIN(1529)@UCLA-CCN
MYERS@USC-ISIC
MYERS@RAND-RCC
DRCPM-FF-FO@BBN-TENEXB
NAGEL@USC-ISIB
NAPKE@SRI-KL
NARDI@SRI-KL
NAYLOR@USC-ISIE
LOU@USC-ISIE
NESBIT@RAND-RCC
NEUMANN@SRI-KA
NEVATIA@USC-ECL
NEWBY@USC-ISI
NEWEKK@SRI-KA
NIELSON@SRI-KL
NLL@SUMEX-AIM
NILSSON@SRI-KL
NITZAN@SRI-KL
NOEL@USC-ISIC
NORMAN@PARC-MAXC
NORTON@SRI-KL
JOAN@USC-ISIB
NOURSE@SUMEX-AIM
PDG@SRI-KL
OMALLEY@SRI-KA
OCKEN@USC-ISIC
OESTREICHER@USC-ISIB
OGDEN@SRI-KA
OKINAKA@USC-ISIE
OLSON@I4-TENEX
ORNSTEIN@PARC-MAXC
PANKO@SRI-KL
TED@SU-AI
PARK@SRI-KL
PBARAN@USC-ISI
PARKER@USC-ISIB
PEARCE@USC-ISI
PEPIN@USC-ECL
PERKINS@USC-ISIB
PETERS@SRI-KL
AMPETERSON@USC-ISI
ASLAB@USC-ISIC
EPG-SPEC@SRI-KA
PEZDIRTZ@LLL-COMP
CHARLIE@I4-TENEX
UCLA-DOC@USC-ISI
WPHILLIPS@USC-ISI
PIERCY@MOFFETT-ARC
PINE@SRI-KL
PIPES@I4-TENEX
PIRTLE@SRI-KL
POGGIO@USC-ISIC
POH@USC-ISI
POOL@BBN-TENEX
POPEK@USC-ISI
POSTEL@USC-ISIB
POWER@SRI-KL
PRICE@USC-ECL
RANDALL@USC-ISIB
RANDALL@SRI-KA
RAPHAEL@SRI-KL
RAPP@RAND-RCC
RASMUSSEN@USC-ISIC
RATTNER@SRI-KL
RAY@ILL-NTX
FNWC@I4-TENEX
BRL@SRI-KL
RETZ@SRI-KL
SKIP@USC-ISIB
RICHARDSON@USC-ISIB
RICHES@USC-ECL
GWEN@USC-ECL
OP-RIEDEL@USC-ISIB
RIES@LLL-COMP
RINDFLEISCH@SUMEX-AIM
OP-ROBBINS@USC-ISIB
ROBINSON@SRI-KL
JROBINSON@SRI-KL
RODRIQUEZ@SRI-KL
MARTIN@USC-ISI
ROM@USC-ISIC
ROMIEZ@I4-TENEX
ROSE@USC-ISI
ROSEN@SRI-KL
BARBARA@I4-TENEX
ROTHENBERG@USC-ISIB
RUBIN@SRI-KL
JBR@SU-AI
RUBINSTEIN@BBN-TENEXD
RUDY@USC-ECL
RUGGERI@SRI-KA
RULIFSON@PARC-MAXC
DALE@USC-ISIB
SACERDOTI@SRI-KL
SAGALOWICZ@SRI-KL
ALS@SU-AI
SANTONI@USC-ISIC
SATTERTHWAITE@PARC-MAXC
SAWCHUK@USC-ECL
CPF-CC@USC-ISI
SCHELONKA@USC-ISI
SCHILL@USC-ISIC
SCHILLING@USC-ISI
SCHULZ@SUMEX-AIM
SCOTT@SUMEX-AIM
CPF-CC@USC-ISI
OP-SEATON@USC-ISIB
SENNE@LL
NORM@RAND-UNIX
AFWL@14-TENEX
SHEPPARD@LL-ASG
SHERWIN@USC-ISI
SHERWOOD@SRI-KL
SHORT@SRI-KL
SHORTLIFE@SUMEX-AIM
SHOSHANI@BBN-TENEX
MARTIN@USC-ISI
UCLA-NMC@USC-ISIE
SDL@USC-ISIC
SKOCYPEC@USC-ISI
SLES@USC-ISI
SLOTTOW@UCLA-CCN
NOAA@14-TENEX
SMALL@USC-ISI
DAVESMITH@PARC-MAXC
DSMITH@RAND-UNIX
SMITH@SUMEX-AIM
SMITH@USC-ECL
MARCIE@I4-TENEX
USARSGEUR@USC-ISI
LOGICON@USC-ISI
EPA@SRI-KL
SONDEREGGER@USC-ISIB
SPEER@LL
AMICON-RN@USC-ISI
SPROULL@PARC-MAXC
PROJX@SRI-KL
STEF@SRI-KA
STEFIK@SUMEX-AIM
STEPHENS@SRI-KA
CFD@I4-TENEX
STOCKHAM@SRI-KA
STOTZ@USC-ISIB
ALLEN@UCLA-SECURITY
STOUTE@MIT-ML
STRADLING@SRI-KL
STROLLO@PARC-MAXC
UCLA-0638@UCLA-CCN
CRT@SRI-KA
SUNSHINE@RAND-UNIX
SUTHERLAND@SRI-KL
SUTHERLAND@RAND-UNIX
SUTHERLAND@PARC-MAXC
SUTTON@USC-ISIC
SWEER@SUMEX-AIM
TAFT@PARC-MAXC
TAYLOR@USC-ISIB
TAYLOR@PARC-MAXC
TAYNAI@SUMEX-AIM
TEITELMAN@PARC-MAXC
TENENBAUM@SRI-KL
GREEP@RAND-UNIX
TERRY@SUMEX-AIM
TESLER@PARC-MAXC
THACKER@PARC-MAXC
PWT@RAND-UNIX
TIPPIT@USC-ISIE
TOBAGI@USC-ISIE
TOGNETTI@SUMEX-AIM
TORRES@SRI-KL
TOWNLEY@HARV-10
ELINA@UCLA-ATS
TUCKER@SUMEX-AIM
TUGENDER@USC-ISIB
LLLSRG@MIT-MC
UNCAPHER@USC-ISIB
NOSC@SRI-KL
UNTULIS@SRI-KL
MIKE@UCLA-SECURITY
AARDVARK@UCLA-ATS
UZGALIS;BIN(0836)@UCLA-CCN
VANGOETHEM@UCLA-CCN
VANMIEROP@USC-ISIB
VANNOUHUYS@SRI-KL
VEIZADES@SUMEX-AIM
VESECKY@USC-ISI
AV@MIT-DMS
VICTOR@USC-ISIC
VIDAL@UCLA-SECURITY
OP-VILAIN@USC-ISIB
RV@RAND-UNIX
SDL@USC-ISIC
VOLPE@SRI-KL
VONNEGUT@I4-TENEX
VU@SRI-KL
WACTLAR@CMU-10A
WAGNER@USC-ISI
WAHRMAN@RAND-UNIX
WALDINGER@SRI-KL
WALKER@UCLA-SECURITY
WALKER@SRI-KL
WALLACE@PARC-MAXC
EVE@UCLA-SECURITY
LOGICON@USC-ISI
DON@RAND-UNIX
WATSON@USC-ISIC
WEIDEL@USC-ECL
WEINBERG@SRI-KL
JLW@MIT-AI
LAUREN@UCLA-SECURITY
WEISSMAN@I4-TENEX
WELLS@USC-ISIC
GERSH@USC-ISI
WETHEREL@LLL-COMP
RWW@SU-AI
SCRL@USC-ISI
TWHELLER@SRI-KA
MABREY@SRI-KL
WHITE@PARC-MAXC
WHITE@SUMEX-AIM
WIEDERHOLD@SUMEX-AIM
WILBER@SRI-KL
EPG-SPEC@SRI-KA
WILCOX@SUMEX-AIM
WILCZYNSKI@USC-ISIB
WILE@USC-ISIB
OP-WILLIAMS@USC-ISIB
WILSON@USC-ISIB
TW@SU-AI
SCI@USC-ISI
WISNIEWSKI@RAND-UNIX
WOLF@SRI-KL
PAT@SU-AI
NELC3030@USC-ISI
WYATT@HARV-10
LEO@USC-ISIB
YEH@LLL-COMP
YONKE@USC-ISIB
YOUNGBERG@SRI-KA
ZEGERS@SRI-KL
ZOLOTOW@SRI-KL
ZOSEL@LLL-COMP
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T.  THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE.  BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.

WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH.  THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:
         
              TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM
                  HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
                  LOS ANGELES, CA

              THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2 PM
                  DUNFEY'S ROYAL COACH
                  SAN MATEO, CA
                  (4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)

A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.

Responses to the spam email were strongly negative. Luckily the controls introduced in 1978 killed off spam once and for all. Oh no. Wait...

Digital VAX-11/780 (1977)

VAX 11/780

Launched October 1977

1977 was a significant year for technology, with the launch of several different brands of microcomputer, games consoles, laser printers and even smart watches. Some new launches seemed less ground-breaking but were perhaps just as important, and the Digital VAX was one such product.

Digital Equipment Corporation (usually shorted to “Digital” or “DEC”) had been a disruptive pioneer in the “small” minicomputer market from the 1950s onwards, best known for their PDP range including the popular 16-bit PDP-11 which was instrumental in the development of Unix.

Time marches on, and by the late 1970s the PDP range was looking tired. So, in October 1977 DEC launched the first of their VAX range, the VAX-11/780. Somewhat backward compatible with the PDP-11, the VAX introduced a 32-bit architecture and virtual memory addressing.

The VAX was designed to be easy to program, and along with it was launched the new VAX-11/VMS operating system which was thoroughly up-to-date in a 1970s sort of way. DEC also had its own version of Unix called ULTRIX and eventually BSD Unix became available too. This made the VAX-11 range the computer of choice for many corporations and universities.

The “minicomputer” name given to this type of machine is unfamiliar today, and given the huge bulk of the VAX-11/780 it seems ridiculous. However, the VAX was “mini” compared to the vast mainframes that IBM offered, and all you would need for an 11/780 was a suitably air-conditioned room with a three-phase power supply rather than a dedicated building. Later VAX-11 models could run off a standard plug. Having that much power and flexibility in a relatively compact computer added to the appeal.

Crucially, these were multi-user computer systems. Dozens or even hundreds of people could connect to a single VAX, and those VAXes could be networked together. Files could be shared securely and applications could be run, typically using a dumb terminal such as a VT52.

The preferred operating system for VAXes was VMS, and this too was a significant step forward. An extremely stable OS, VMS became the choice of businesses that didn’t want downtime. Because DEC controlled both the hardware and software, it made it much easier to make sure everything worked together. Potentially you could run a VAX/VMS system for years without downtime unless you wanted to upgrade the OS or run a standalone backup.

VMS became a significant inspiration for Microsoft’s Windows NT platform, used by every modern version of Windows. This is no coincidence, as Dave Cutler was a technical lead on both OSes (later moving to help develop Microsoft’s Azure platform). In the smaller systems market, NT is the only effective opposition to Unix-derived systems such as Linux, Android and iOS.

The VAX line was very popular, and over the years the range expanded to include small MicroVAX systems all the way up to supercomputers. Hugely popular at first, the VAX suffered as the minicomputer market decline in the face of business PCs, which eventually led to DEC being taken over by Compaq, who in run were taken over by HP. Although the last VAX computer was built in 2005, the operating system (now called OpenVMS) was ported to DEC’s Alpha platform, then Intel Itanium with a port to x86 in the works. HP still promote OpenVMS for running mission critical applications.

The VAX-11/780 is hardly a collectable item today due to its sheer size, and most second-hand bits of VAX hardware are probably bought by people keeping ancient installations running. But you don’t have to look far to see the influence of VMS – the architecture of any modern Windows PC is certainly a nod in that direction.

Image credits:

Frank Fujimoto via Flickr 
 Amintore Fanfani via Flickr

Xerox 9700 (1977)

Launched 1977

Forty years ago we were seeing the start of a boom in personal computing.. but at the other end of the scale we were also seeing the dawn of digital imaging, in this case with laser printers.

The Xerox 9700 was launched in 1977, and although it lagged behind the IBM 3800, the Xerox was much closer to today's office laser printers than the IBM which was basically a very fast line printer. Capable of a maximum throughput of 120 pages per minute on cut sheet paper at up to 300 dpi, the Xerox 9700 could combine text and graphics in ways that hadn't previously been possible.

It was a big beast, which was understandable when you realise that it was basically three things joined together. Xerox took the guts of one of their own photocopiers and added a unit containing the laser and imaging system to it. Then they bolted a DEC PDP 11/34 to the whole thing to act as a controller. Sharp eyed readers may notice that in the picture the PDP 11 is being controlled by a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A.

Xerox 9700

It was huge and hardly cheap. Even in 1980 after it had been around for a while, the Xerox 9700 still started at $35,240 (worth about $100,000 today). It took about another decade for laser printers to hit the mass market with devices such as the Apple LaserWriter or HP LaserJet range.
Forty years later, Xerox still make printers including huge devices such as the Xerox Nuvera range which cost almost as much the 9700 did back in the day.

Image credits: Xerox via Digibarn

AltaVista (1995)

Launched December 1995

It’s difficult to imagine now, but once upon a time finding stuff on the web was *hard*.  In the early 1990s, the number of web sites grew from 623 at the end of 1993 to a quarter of a million in mid-1996.. but there was no reliable way to search for information on all those thousands of websites all at once.

In early 1994, the web directory Yahoo! was founded which attempted to catalogue the web by category. If you wanted to research a topic, you would have to drill down through Yahoo!’s categories in much the same way as using a library.

In mid-1994 the world’s first “full text” search engine was launched, called WebCrawler. But it only indexed a small part of the rapidly growing web, and the results were extremely hit-and-miss.

But in December 1995 the first recognisably modern search engine was launched. Predating Google by several years, Digital’s AltaVista service made the first real attempt to index a large part of the ever-growing web, and made a good effort to sort search results in a way that was meaningful to users. Originally the site was hosted at altavista.digital.com, only moving to altavista.com in 1998.
 The effect was dramatic. It no longer took hours to find a piece of information on the web, but instead AltaVista could give the answer in a few seconds (usually) and the result you were looking for was usually on the first page.. or first few pages. AltaVista had some pretty advanced search functions which allowed users to tailor their results further.

The effect was dramatic. It no longer took hours to find a piece of information on the web, but instead AltaVista could give the answer in a few seconds (usually) and the result you were looking for was usually on the first page.. or first few pages. AltaVista had some pretty advanced search functions which allowed users to tailor their results further.

As is the case today, AltaVista made it easy to find obscure or precise bits of information, but was less good when it came to general topics. This meant that most users would use a combination of AltaVista and Yahoo! when researching topics.

Built in part to showcase Digital’s Alpha-based processors,  AltaVista temporarily transformed the stuffy old Digital Equipment Corporation into a major player.. for a short time.

But AltaVista had a significant flaw. The search engine results were initially based almost entirely on “on-page” factors (such as the title, headings and word density of a page) which meant that the the search engine could be easily manipulated, leading to a rise in search engine spam. When rivals Google came to market they used a fundamentally different approach which leaned heavily on “off-page” factors such as PageRank.

AltaVista grew quickly and in 1999 the majority was sold to an investment firm which valued the site at over $2.7 billion. A combination of the collapse of the Dot-Com Boom and the rise of Google severely dented AltaVista and after being passed around various owners it shut down completely in 2011.

For a generation of early internet  users, AltaVista transformed the way they used the web. Without doubt it helped to make the early web accessible and contributed to its phenomenal growth in the late 1990s. But sadly in the post-Google world, AltaVista has largely been forgotten as the great pioneer it once was,.

DEC VT52 (1975)

Launched September 1975

Think of the exciting end of today’s technological spectrum. You might come up with smartwatches, 4K TV and internet-connected fridges. Now think of the other end. Perhaps you might think about UPS maintenance, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and replacing the pickup rollers in your laser printer. Well, I am going to talk about computer terminals which most people will think belongs on the less-sexy end of the scale..

..but wait. Go back forty years to September 1975. If you were a grown-up back then, you might be lusting after one of those new-fangled digital watches. But it you were very lucky, then perhaps your employer would buy you something like a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VT52 instead.

If you belong to the generation that puzzles over why the icon for “save” is a floppy disk but you have never seen one, then perhaps an explanation is in order. A computer terminal is a pretty simple device that connects to a bigger computer with many users, sometimes in the same building, sometimes thousands of miles away. Back in the mid-1970s, this sort of thing was the state-of-the-art. That computer would sometimes be somewhere else in the same building, or it could be hundreds or thousands of miles away. To some extent, a terminal was just the ultimate thin client.

When the VT52 was launched in September 1975, it marked a significant transition from really incredibly dumb teletypes to devices that could run something that looked rather more like a modern business application. In other words, it helped to take computing out of the realms of the geeks and put it on people’s desks in the office instead.

OK. If you are of the iPad generation then perhaps your eyes are glazing over, but before the 1970s, the most user-friendly way you could interact with a computer was by using a teletype - basically a printer with a keyboard and a computer interface on the back. Everything you typed got printed out, and every response from the computer was printed out too. These things were connected to a box of 2500 sheets of fanfold paper which would run out from time-to-time. And they were noisy. And they were slow.

Sometime in the late 1960s, somebody had the really good idea of replacing the paper with a cathode ray tube, but although they were quieter and eliminated a lot of dead trees, they were still massively dumb devices. These were called glass teletypes, and essentially they worked in the same way as paper-based ones.

But come the 1970s, not only did we have the Bay City Rollers, but also these horribly dumb devices were becoming just a bit more intelligent, which leads us to the DEC VT52. A product of the Digital Equipment Corporation (aka “Digital” or “DEC”) of Massachusetts, the VT52 and its competitors offered some revolutionary features that would help to define modern computing.

Where a glass teletype simply printed out what it received, a terminal such as the VT52 could do a lot more. The single biggest advance was that the computer could move the cursor around the screen and output whatever it wanted, wherever it wanted. And the more basic things like being able to support both uppercase and lowercase characters at the same time certainly helped.

What this all meant was the computers suddenly became much more interactive. Instead of typing something in and just getting a response, you could create forms for entering data. Or create a spreadsheet. Or edit documents. It was the VT52 and its contemporaries that helped to build recognisably modern applications. Perhaps more importantly of all, it opened the way to quite sophisticated games such as DECWAR and Rogue.

The VT52 itself came in several different versions, including one with a printer that could dump the contents of the screen onto a wet sheet of paper. Lovely. And one key design flaw with the VT52 turned out to be the relatively flat top which ended up being covered with papers and manuals.. which lead to overheating.

Typically paired with a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer, the V52 was widely adapted by other computer systems too. In 1978 the VT52 was replaced by the DEC VT100, which became the standard terminal to emulate even today. DEC was taken over by Compaq in 1998, which itself was taken over by HP in 2002. But the direct descendant of the VT52, the VT520, is still in production today.

Within a few years microcomputers such as the Apple II and Commodore PET had moved the computer away from the control of the IT department and fully onto the user's desk, and for a long time it seemed that "thin clients" would vanish. However, the emergence of the World-Wide Web in the 1990s swung the technology the other way.

These days, 1970s DEC terminals in good condition can sell for hundreds of dollars to collectors, despite being about as useful in modern computing as a chocolate teapot.

Image credits [1] [2]