Tektronix’s Vector Graphics
Ronny Svedman gives a demonstration of a Tektronix 4006-1 a late 1970’s era tube vector graphics terminal. It’s now almost 50 years old, and should remind people that all the fancy graphics of today had their start a long, long time ago. This particular model has a Swedish EPROM (iso-10646-se) is rendered with slightly different characters.
This thing has some fantastic vector graphics that I wish we could still have today. Vector graphics is pretty limited, but it creates some really iconic images. Fun really starts at 3:54
2 thoughts on “Tektronix’s Vector Graphics”
Cool that you found my decade old video. I still have the terminal, and should probably make a better recording, 480p is nowhere near sharp enough. The thing has 1024×780 endpoint coordinates, and draws perfectly sharp lines without stair stepping.
Hey!! Great to meet you!
Thanks for preserving a bit of amazing history by keeping that terminal alive! 1024×780 when that was made was a near unheard of resolution – I didn’t realize it was capable of that high res at that that speed.
Believe it or not, I live not far from Tektronix’s Beaverton office. A bummer they are doing as much of this kind of ground-breaking innovation as they did back in the day.