Category:Tektronix

These were plotted using a Tektronix graphics computer^[1] starting sometime after 1975 or so^[2].

All of the designs are based on wide-interval samplings^[3] of sine waves plotted in various different ways. This was a technique I discovered more or less by accident when I mistakenly had the trig functions set to "RAD" (radians) with a plotting program that was designed to work in degrees.

I wrote the plotting program in BASIC, because that's what was available (I think that was probably the first programming language I actually used successfully^[4].) I wrote the program in the first place because I wanted to see what shapes you get when plotting various sine functions using polar coordinates. (Sine waves are fun. Polar coordinates are also fun.)

Footnotes

↑ Based on what's in Wikipedia, I'm pretty sure it was a model 4051 (see also Terminals wiki). It had an integrated QIC tape drive, and the screen was a bit smaller than the ones used on the original version of Battlestar Galactica.
↑ One of the plots is dated 1983; not sure if this is accurate.
↑ Feel free to ask me to explain what I mean by this.
↑ : I had tried to write in FOCAL-69 in 1972, second grade, but I misunderstood the line-numbering system and my programs all executed out of order... and it's difficult to create any output worth looking at when your output device is a teletype. (A VT52 was later added, for those occasions when you don't actually need a complete printed record of your entire debugging session.)