Tektronix 4051

The Tektronix 4050 was a series of three computer graphics microcomputers produced by Tektronix in the late 1970s through the early 1980s. The display technology was similar to the Tektronix 4010 terminal, using a storage tube display to avoid the need for video RAM. They were all-in-one designs with the display, keyboard, CPU and DC300 tape drive in a single desktop case. They also included a GPIB parallel bus interface for controlling lab and test equipment as well as connecting to external peripherals. A simple operating system and BASIC interpreter were included in ROM.

A key concept of the systems was the use of a storage tube for the display. This allowed the screen to retain images drawn to it, eliminating the need for a framebuffer, computer memory devoted to the display. Most systems of the era had limited resolution due to the expense of the buffer needed to hold higher resolution images, but this was eliminated in the 4050s and allowed the resolution to be as high as the hardware could handle, which was ostensibly 1024 by 1024 but limited by the physical layout of the screen to 1024 by 780. It also allowed the machine to dedicate all of its memory to the programs running on it, as opposed to partitioning off a section for the buffer.

The first model, the 4051, was based on 8-bit Motorola 6800 running at a 1 MHz. It normally shipped with 8 kB of RAM and was expandable using 8 kB modules to 32 kB. The remaining 32 kB of address space was reserved for ROM, which could be expanded using two external ROM cartridge of 8 kB each. It included six character sets in ROM and an extended dialect of BASIC that included various vector drawing commands. The 4051 was released in 1975 for the base price of $5,995. Adding the optional RS-232 interface allowed it to emulate a Tektronix 4012 terminal.

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