Category:Tektronix: Difference between revisions

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<ref name=note1>Based on what's in Wikipedia, I'm pretty sure it was a [[wikipedia:Tektronix 4050|model 4051]] (see also [https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/Tektronix_4051 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''.</ref>
<ref name=note1>Based on what's in Wikipedia, I'm pretty sure it was a [[wikipedia:Tektronix 4050|model 4051]] (see also [https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/Tektronix_4051 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''.</ref>
<ref name=note2>Feel free to ask me to explain what I mean by this.</ref>
<ref name=note2>Feel free to ask me to explain what I mean by this.</ref>
<ref name=note3>: I had tried to write in {{l/wp|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 {{l/wp|VT52}} was later added, for those occasions when you don't actually need a complete printed record of your entire debugging session.)</ref>
<ref name=note3>I had tried to write in {{l/wp|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 {{l/wp|VT52}} was later added, for those occasions when you don't actually need a complete printed record of your entire debugging session.)</ref>
</references>
</references>

Latest revision as of 00:49, 20 September 2026

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

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ↑ One of the plots is dated 1983; not sure if this is accurate.
  3. ↑ Feel free to ask me to explain what I mean by this.
  4. ↑ 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.)
wiki file: https://hypertwins.org/mw/index.php?title=Category:Tektronix&oldid=32523