5.8 KiB

Raw Blame History

2023-09-13 — Dev notes

Highlights in this note:

BEFLIX
aperture cards

Tools that could be fun to use for simulators

try Love2D for graphical simulator
- - fennel
also P5
pico8 / tic80
C + Raylib
Defold

Quick incomplete survey of decimal computers

ENIAC
1951 — UNIVAC I
& II
…
1955/56 — TX-0
1959-1971 — IBM 1401
1964 — IBM System/360
z80, 6502, x86… include instructions for BCD

Quick survey of early computeres that weren't decimal

1950
1959-1969 — PDP-1 (spacewar)
1965 — PDP-8 (“DEC’s first major success and the start of the minicomputer revolution”)
1970 — PDP-11 (“the archetypical minicomputer” — wikipedia)

Cardiac

1966-1968

Links

(I'm looking for info about what computers they were using at Bell Labs, and what they were doing with them...)

From CARDIAC manual:

The computer is playing an increasingly important part in all areas of research at Bell Laboratories. Today, about 30 per cent of the technical personnel there spend more than half their time programming computers.

Currently, a Bell Laboratories task force is developing BIS (Business Information System) to supply Bell System management with the kind of up-to-the-minute information needed to reduce operating costs and provide better customer service. BIS will use new third generation computers-high-speed, on-line, real-time random-access machines with mass information storage and retrieval capabilities.

It is no exaggeration to say the story of Bell Laboratories and computers is a significant one. Information theory, error detection and correction codes, electronic switching, programs for visual computer displays such as BEFLIX, as well as for design, simulation and modeling—these and many others are only highlights in the long story. And as a by-product of this story, CARDIAC was developed, which we hope will help you to understand computers.

BEFLIX

→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BEFLIX

BEFLIX is the name of the first embedded domain-specific language for computer animation, invented by Ken Knowlton at Bell Labs in 1963.[1] The name derives from a combination of Bell Flicks. Ken Knowlton used BEFLIX to create animated films for educational and engineering purposes. He also collaborated with the artist Stan Vanderbeek at Bell Labs to create a series of computer-animated films called Poemfields between 1966 and 1969.

BEFLIX was developed on the IBM 7090 mainframe computer using a Stromberg-Carlson SC4020 microfilm recorder for output. The programming environment targeted by BEFLIX consisted of a FORTRAN II implementation with FORTRAN II Assembly Program (FAP) macros. The first version of BEFLIX was implemented through the FAP macro facility. A later version targeting FORTRAN IV resembled a more traditional subroutine library and lost some of the unique flavor to the language.

Pixels are produced by writing characters to the screen of the microfilm recorder with a defocused electron beam. The SC4020 used a charactron tube to expose microfilm. In BEFLIX, the electron beam is defocused to draw pixels as blurred character shapes. Characters are selected to create a range of grayscale values for pixels. The microfilm recorder is not connected directly to the 7090, but communicates through magnetic tape. BEFLIX writes the magnetic tape output on the 7090 and the film recorder reads the tape to create the film output. BEFLIX also supports a preview mode where selected frames of the output are written to the line printer.

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→ Using his BEFLIX Computer Animation Language, Ken Knowlton Produces "A Computer Technique for the Production of Animated Movies"