On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 15:31:09 +0100, Chris Mason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >... >Yes, indeed, the 2250 was a large and expensive device which - as I vaguely >recall - was designed for use in research establishments which - to be >provocative - probably lived off federal grants, establishments where >describing their computer with the prefix "super" would not be >inappropriate. >...
Not just super computers. The IBM's Seattle Datacenter had one attached to a Mod 50 back in the late 1960s. It could definitely be configured as a console, but it was a graphics device. > ... I was particularly taken by the way >the characters were rendered. There was a distinct impression that they were >drawn rather than being of fixed shape. I was going to say rendered by >"software" rather than "hardware" - but where do you draw the line? - if >you'll excuse the pun. >... I have no idea how they worked at the hardware level, but they were vector graphics devices at the programming level. You would specify the start and end coordinates of a line. I can't remember how arcs were specified except that it had the coordinates of the center, the radius, and some way of specifying start and end points. Characters were definitely drawn. When acting as a console it had a last-gasp routine that got control when the CPU had a hardware failure. It displayed RUN SEREP in big block letters. Unfortunately, I got to see that back in my operator days. An impressive display, but I don't recall anybody cheering. Pat O'Keefe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
