Datamax UV-1

The Datamax UV-1 was a pioneering computer designed by a group of computer graphics artists working at the University of Illinois at Chicago, known as the Circle Graphics Habitat. It was primarily the brainchild of Tom DeFanti, who was trying to build a machine capable of running his GRASS programming language at a personal computer price point, a project they referred to as the Z-Box. As time went on the project evolved into a machine intended to be used to make high-quality color graphics for output to videotape, and later as a titling system for use by cable television companies. It represents what seems to be the first dedicated graphics workstation.

DeFanti had been working at the Habitat for some time when, in 1977, he was introduced to Jeff Frederiksen, a chip designer working at Dave Nutting Associates. Nutting had been contracted by Midway, the video game division of Bally, to create a standardized graphics driver chip. They intended to use it in most of their future arcade games, as well as a console they were working on which would later turn into the Astrocade.

Midway was not immediately interested in the home computer market, but the Nutting people managed to convince management to get DeFanti to port GRASS3 to the platform under contract. The idea was to build an external box that would be used with the existing console to turn it into a "real" computer, a system known as the ZGRASS-100. A number of people at the Habitat, as well as some from Nutting, worked on the project, adding a keyboard, memory, and additional connectors. A separate display chip created text, which was then mixed with the output from the display chip for the screen. Also included would be a new version of GRASS3, known as Zgrass.

At about the same time, another version of the same basic parts was built as the UV-1. In this case the machine was built as an all-in-one box, including the small amount of additional hardware needed to support the high-resolution mode of the Nutting chipset, which supplied 320 x 204 resolution with up to 8 colors per line. This mode required 16kB for the display buffer alone, so the machine included 32kB RAM and a larger 16kB ROM with additional Zgrass commands in it. To this basic system the Habitat added high quality video output circuitry and a floppy disk interface.

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