Lyle Bickley explains the PDP-1 (and we play the original Spacewar!)

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Lyle Bickley, of the PDP-1 restoration team, gives us a tour of this amazing, early scientific interactive computer at the Computer History Museum. The first machine built by DEC in 1959, it features a superb graphics screen. DEC gave one to MIT, and some very bright students went wild. Gems such as Spacewar!, Snowflake, 4-voice music programs were all developed by moonlighting MIT students, unencumbered by its measly 12kW memory and pokey 100,000 instructions per second. Along with much more serious debugging and programming languages of course. You can come and see the real machine for yourself at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California:
www.computerhistory.org/
Also, Norbert Landsteiner made this incredible simulation of the PDP-1 that can run the original Spacewar! and Minkytron code in your browser:
www.masswerk.at/spacewar/
www.masswerk.at/minskytron/
He also made a gate exact replica with Verilog code on github:
• PDP-1 recreated in FPG...
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1 май 2017

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@lbickley 7 лет назад

Correction! After reviewing the video, I realized that I misstated the size of the Model 30 display. I said it was 19", but it is actually a 16". The tube (a 16ADP7), was commonly used in radar systems of the period.

@fredyearian4968 6 лет назад

P7 phosphor is yellow green and long persistence.

@FlumenSanctiViti 6 лет назад

Would be interesting to see the code for that light pen. I wonder how much data can it capture, or in other words, how long of a line can it register.

@lolomixed6442 5 лет назад

You are the most valuable resource in that museum. With out, you those machines will just be big pieces of junk. Hope to be there one day.

@lolomixed6442 5 лет назад

@alysdexia I´m talking about the person who apears in the video: Lyle Bickley.

@ylst8874 4 года назад

U are a genius 😉

@RidinDirtyRollinBurnouts 4 года назад

My brain is telling me I am looking at the 1980s because I cannot fathom this at 1959, this is beyond cool

@myst9900 4 года назад

Funny you commented that because Atari also got a version of Space War and the engine for it was used in Asteroids too.

@EVPaddy 4 года назад

I remember the 80ies, especially the Amiga a bit more powerful ;)

@twistedyogert 4 года назад

I just am blown away how quickly things progressed after the microprocessor was invented. There were some experts before then that thought only governments, schools and large businesses would onlt want or need computers.

@herrbonk3635 3 года назад

@@twistedyogert This was not *due* to the microprocessor though. The key was massive fast memories. That would have led to powerful computers even without the microprocessor.

@twistedyogert 3 года назад

@@herrbonk3635 Right, but cost went down with microprocessors. Only large corporations or government agencies like NASA could afford a computer. But with microprocessors you can buy one that is just as powerful for your office. I was told that price comes down with fewer numbers of components. So it's more efficient to combine multiple circuits into a single component rather than building them discreetly. Also, power requirements are lower, didn't some of these early machines use several kilowatts?

@forrestt7263 6 лет назад

I played Space War on the PDP-1 when I was 6 years old in 1962. My dad worked on the video monitor. It was difficult for him to bring me into work, because the engineers didn't want kids around. The machine also played Bach-like music through speakers inside burlap faced speaker boxes. In that time the game was played through the main console switch bank.

@beansontoast9323 5 лет назад

Wow that is a amazing

@baragonkunfan94thesecondar60 5 лет назад

wait so you’re 62/63?

@samus-rd1channel585 4 года назад

You was a lucky kid!

@Thomalski 4 года назад

@@samus-rd1channel585 *where (if you weren't using slang)

@Thomalski 4 года назад

@@simonzinc-trumpetharris852 whoops haha. Thank you for correcting me (for real).

@Krystalmyth 3 года назад

It's absolutely amazing. Actual head to head combat, full on gravity physics, unique models for each player, projectile tracking, particle effects... I mean it's impressive.

@mmille10 Год назад

I'm thinking it's not full on gravity physics. I notice the shells don't seem to be affected by gravity. :) It only affects the ships. But then, this is inside of 4KW. Can't have everything. :) I remember playing a version of this on my Atari STe way back when (with sprite graphics), and it had the shells and particles affected by gravity, as well. That was pretty cool. When you'd blow up, the particles got drawn in, and scattered around the central star! :)

@lbickley 7 лет назад

Most of the demos were indeed written by MIT students, including the music program by Peter Samson. Marvin Minsky was a Professor when he wrote "Minskytron". Steve Russell was doing consulting work at MIT when he wrote "Spacewar!".

@Jose_Pointero 7 лет назад

Fantastic demonstration, I learned a lot from it. Kudos to everyone involved with keeping this machine in such great condition!

@Wizardofgosz 7 лет назад

I was under the impression several people contributed to Spacewar!

@MaxKoschuh 7 лет назад

brilliant !!!

@lbickley 7 лет назад

The principal author was Steve Russell, Peter Samson was responsible for the star field, and Dan Edwards and Martin Graetz were contributors to optimization of the code, etc.

@Wizardofgosz 7 лет назад

I remember Steven Levy wrote about that machine and the culture it created when it was at MIT. In the book HACKERS, Levy mentioned the guy who wrote the star field code made it match a certain part of the sky. I don't know if that's true. I think Levy also told a story about a student who wanted to add another instruction to the processor, so they went in one night and had wired it, but it caused some problems of some sort.

@georgesenda1952 3 года назад

This was the first computer I ever saw. It was in a warehouse of a company south of market Street in San Francisco and they made their own ribbon cable joysticks and invited a bunch of us in to look at the computer And allowed all of us to play space war for a little bit. I was 16 in 1968 And from then on I wanted my own computer one day and finally got an apple two in the 1970s. I am 68 now.

@georgesenda1952 2 года назад

I will be 70 in 21 days. How computing has changed since 1968 !

@rudestbeast4907 8 месяцев назад

apple 2 was great.. it birthed multiple genres

@georgesenda1952 8 месяцев назад

@@rudestbeast4907 I still have my Apple ][ GS, ][E, ][C. apple ][+ & integer based apple & all work fine though I have not used them for awhile. My GS has a bad 3 1/2 inch drive & I need to get a new one.

@oxygengraphafonadelaverberator 5 лет назад

Programming those light effects was incredible for 1959.

@redonk1740 2 года назад

It's incredible for 2021.

@VandalIO 2 года назад

This Pdp has shader 2.0 😂

@Nullius_in_verba Год назад

It wasnt 1959 but 1962

@atranas6018 6 лет назад

1024p display on 1959. awesome

@alexnemeth3680 6 лет назад

And in 2018 most laptops are 768p and most desktop displays are 1080p. Really makes you think... 🤔

@layoutgames-boris3481 5 лет назад

my old tv is 480p and it isn't touchscreen xD

@bighands69 5 лет назад

Old CRT televisions have better black levels and contrast levels than modern LCD tvs. Plasma has a far superier image to LCD's. A plasma will have better quality imagine than a 4k HDR LCD today that cost $10,000.

@randomizzatore7732 5 лет назад

@@alexnemeth3680 Except this one was for like 10 people and actual laptops are build in millions and have a battery

@elimalinsky7069 5 лет назад

Technically a vector display didn't have a fixed resolution. 1024x1024 is simply the number of individual coordinates for the electron beam to travel between. Vector displays don't have pixels or dots and technically resolution is infinite.

@joergmaass 3 года назад

I am proud to have worked for this company (Digital Equipment). I learned pretty much everything there, and the spirit and work ethics of DEC are something that sticks with you for life. Even though I joined late, you met so many amazing people there whom you could learn from, it was incredible! We had folks who would read a memory printout in Hex as if it was a children's book, people who could diagnose network or hardware problems with the precision of a laser beam... I'm forever grateful to have met each and every one of them, and I owe what success I had in my career chiefly to them and DEC as a whole. It is so sad that this company ceased to exist because of poor management and decision making...

@calebfuller4713 3 года назад

Sad that so many technology companies with skilled engineers went the same way because of horrible management. You and I both surely know the survivors haven't always been the ones with the best hardware or software!

@MikeBracewell 6 лет назад

Jaw dropping.1959, discreet transistors, 4k core memory - and look what it can do! Just amaizing. One deeply humbled programmer here.

@0x8badf00d 4 года назад

4 "kilo"words and it's 18 bit words. So it's 9 KiB in modern terms.

@acmefixer1 4 года назад

And it didn't have a hard disk! That's what's amazing. 👍👍

@kaasmeester5903 3 года назад

At our university, they had us write up something similar in Assembly on a small CPU driving 2 DA converters connected to an XY scope. At the time, tech had advanced quite a bit further of course, but it was instructive and a lot of fun to go back to the basics

@TEDodd 2 года назад

@@kaasmeester5903 is that recent? or 20+ yrs ago? I'm not seeing/hearing about a lot of low level projects like that anymore. In the '90s we did real time controls with 68HC11 MCUs and assembly, but the equivalent class was PIC based using python when my son went in 2010s.

@kaasmeester5903 2 года назад

@@TEDodd Early 90s.

@walterpark8824 Год назад

My first ‘personal’ computer experience. My friends and I would go into the lab at midnight, and load and play Space Wars. 1967. Still looks thrilling 50+ years later!

@honkhonk8009 10 месяцев назад

I was born in 2004, and grew up playing video games and really only experienced modern computing I got into computers when I terrorized by friends and coded up my own roblox scripts lol. Now im invested into the whole hobby But after breadboarding up a computer out of discrete logic IC's, ima be honest, its damn near magical lmfao. You get a whole new perspective on computers like the PDP-1.

@stillstyle 5 лет назад

The music is so beautiful! 60 year old chiptunes!

@johnfrancisdoe1563 4 года назад

stillstyle Nope, not chiptunes. Pure wave output without DMA buffers. And with serious speakers too.

@m.p.jallan2172 3 года назад

@@MegaUpstairs i find the piece interesting simply because of its presentation on the PDP-1, i would be interested to know what the piece is, its routine baroque music and could be from anyone of the thousands of composers of the period or a MIT student.

@m.p.jallan2172 3 года назад

@@MegaUpstairs someone suggests "Bach BWM 592, movement 3" @4:00 , thats a concerto bach transcribed from an amateur prince composer.

@m.p.jallan2172 3 года назад

@@MegaUpstairs I'll bet you know the first part as its quite memorable in its simple ways, but i had certainly forgot how the rest sounded : ).

@Wulfdane 5 лет назад

It's absolutely amazing someone was able to create the PDP-1 in just over 3 months back in 1959, the complexity of this machine boggles the mind. ' Wonderful video.

@525Lines 7 лет назад

That's why the old radar screens had a cone over it, so it would make the afterglow easier to see. That's why the original Star Trek show had the same rig, as a callback to those radar screens.

@blackbird8632 5 лет назад

525Lines i worked with old CRT radars, (1970-80 systems) on ships, those had a cone that was needed for glare, not afterglow.

@swiftfox3461 7 лет назад

Man. This is a beautiful machine. I love the sound, the mechanics of it all. It's one of a kind.

@sgerar37 5 лет назад

Donating the computer, err, sorry "Programmed-data-processor" to MIT was a genius move from DEC. I bet they were not fully aware of what their creation would be capable of doing on "the right hands"! It's a shame that DEC no longer exists. My father's job was to repair them, beginning from the PDP-8 I believe. Thanks for the amazing video!

@AndreiNeacsu 5 лет назад

Your father had an awesome job!

@russellfinch5493 4 года назад

Only partially true. I started with DEC back in 1976. Back then, DEC made every part of the computer. They made the boards, disk drives, floppy's, terminals both printers and video along with their own CPU's. By the time Compaq came along, DEC had sold off many of these business to other computer company's. For the most part, DEC sold off their PC business to Compaq. What was coveted back in the late 90's was their field service business and of course their CPU manufacturing. The Alpha chip rocked the world at the time and even Intel stole part of its architecture which showed up in their Pentium class of chips. Yes, they were sued and lost. Sadly, once the Board kicked Ken Olsen out as CEO, DEC died. My job was lost in 1993 as our business unit went out to Colorado Springs and after that, I have no idea what company acquired that division. Just a fantastic place to work. The micro VAX was on the Shuttle and there are still VAX running systems out there.

@bobdinitto 2 года назад

I worked for DEC in the 1980's. Donating computers to universities was a part of their business strategy. When those students went on to become engineers and scientists they would buy the same equipment for their businesses they had used in school.

@mmille10 Год назад

The founders of DEC came out of MIT. The reason they created the company was they wanted to do more with building interactive computing, which MIT, other universities, and others in the industry were not so keen on funding at the time. The PDP-1 was a commercialized version of the TX-0, which was built at MIT, and was one of the first computers to run on transistors. It took a little more prompting from John McCarthy, with his concept of "utility computing" in 1961, to get MIT on board with interactive computing. What I'm remembering from my history is that the reason DEC named their first series of machines "Programmed Data Processors" had something to do with investors. They felt that there were too many computer companies at the time (DEC would be entering a crowded field, they thought), and so the company came up with the idea of not calling their computer a "computer." :)

@kevnar 3 года назад

I love when the guy interviewing the expert actually knows what he's talking about. It saves the expert having to dumb it down for the interviewer. Then you really get no useful information.

@ddostesting 7 лет назад

This is mind blowing. The people who created this ... I am just in awe of...

@reversethursday4975 2 года назад

I wonder if they knew the impact on the future they were making

@BoredInNW6 10 месяцев назад

Lyle does a fantastic job with this presentation. His enthusiasm is infectious!

@pancudowny 4 года назад

To think: This was the machine, and the game, that George Lucas saw at MIT in the day that inspired him to create THX 1128 and Star Wars, respectively.

@redsyrup1138 4 года назад

This has got to be the best quality video of Space War on RU-vid today! I've always wanted to play it. Thanks for capturing and sharing here!

@mistrotech8894 6 лет назад

This is soooooooooooooo ahead of its time! So cool! I cant beleive they could do this in the 50s! AMAZING!!!!

@kana22693 5 лет назад

Fun fact; the National Socialist party of Germany had 3D videos of their leader's speeches nearly 70 years before 3D movies became a fad.

@rudolfrieder186 4 года назад

@@kana22693 3D films were also a fad in the 1980s and 1950s, while early 3D films were made in the 1920s.

@bob4analog 4 года назад

They were so ahead of their time... or are we now behind the times! We take for granted how technology got to now.

@pizzablender 3 года назад

@@rudolfrieder186 Catain Disillusion has a good mention of that. "Arrival of a train at La Ciotat" as a very famous film of the era, "And it was remade in 3D, 20 years later". Which is actually true. And as one can see, nothing changes.

@UNSCPILOT Год назад

A lot of the trouble was just the scale of the hardware, a lot of stuff was possible before it got miniaturized but took up entire rooms and thousands of dollars, now a laptop the size of a book can run VR games or crunch gigabytes of image data to make high detail images of galaxies thanks to stuffing orders of magnitude more processing hardware and memory. Meanwhile a roomful of computing hardware now can handle more information processing and storage than could have been imagined in 1950, and we still haven't reached the level of processing power, storage density, or power efficiency of the human brain, though we are starting to apply lessons from it's architecture to improve AI and processing difficult to parse information

@rot_studios 7 лет назад

I love how you turn this huge machine one with the tiniest button haha

@TheEmeraldMenOfficial 3 года назад

Anticlimax at its finest.

@rebelfleettrooper9881 5 лет назад

Spacewar was a really great game for it's time. I think it still holds up now.

@honkhonk8009 10 месяцев назад

Thats the first game I made on scratch when my 6th grade teacher had the whole coding class lmfao. I swear theres something instinctual, borderline BIOLOGICAL behind our species love of computers. Something about coding up something out of just information, and seeing it come to life, is just wild. Most species have the natural perogative to eat and reproduce. Humans add another one, which is build. Eat, Build, Reproduce

@S.PaulMentzer 5 лет назад

Of all the things that I consider amazing about this machine and the programs that were written for it, I am drawn to Spacewar! It had absolutely nothing to base itself off of. Nothing like it existed prior. The programmer had to create so much of it from scratch. A way to control two drawn objects with separate controls. A way for them to interact (shoot), the physics of how the ships should move in the space provided, the gravity star in the middle, the scoring system, collision detection, EVERYTHING. I think back to when powered flight was invented. Prior to that, thousands of people came up with some very wacky ideas for how to get an object to fly in the air. But 1 of those designs became the basis for everything afterward. Incredible.

@movdqa 3 года назад

Ex-DEC employee. I think that the first DEC system I used was a PDP-15 when I was a teenager and it was dedicated to running chess. I never knew that there was a PDP-1 though I did wonder about it. I used lots of PDP-8s and 11s, DECSystems, VAXen and Alpha systems. Great to see this video and nice to see the gentleman maintaining this hardware.

@retroversum 5 лет назад

this is so freaking amazing! I'm just spechless! It's so ahead of it's time and it is so interesting to see this machine working after nearly 60 Years!

@TerryMcKean 4 года назад

That's absolutely awesome. It has practically everything a modern computer has: HD video... stereo audio... gaming... etc... all in a cool-looking gigantic space-opera/science-fiction setup with lots of blinking lights, too. ;-) Mega-kudos to Lyle and other folks at CHM for getting that rig up and running beautifully.

@TheMadisonHang 6 лет назад

the song is Bach BWM 592, movement 3 @4:00

@jojodi 6 лет назад

Awesome! I was trying to figure this out via Google searches.

@Xezlec 6 лет назад

Just what I wanted to know.

@Krokussify 3 года назад

thanks

@ag3ntorange164 Год назад

This should be in a public shrine where all us geeks can go and worship it. It is absolutely incredible to see the influence this machine had on Nolan Bushnell first hand. That's Asteroids/Gravitar's grandparent running right there. And that code on paper is the dead sea scrolls of gaming.

@anirudhrowjee1378 3 года назад

The sheer size of the shoulders of giants that ANYONE who uses a computer, smartphone or server stands on... The mind melts if you attempt to comprehend it. I am deeply humbled at the intellectual prowess of those before me who built the machines that propelled the human race into the information age, and am extremely fortunate to be living in such a time. This was in 1959! Oh my, This is amazing...

@AtleRamsli 5 лет назад

I was born in 1959, and I've seen a lot of videos, but this one is by far the most fascinating. The first term for a 'computer' that I remember learning was that of an 'electronic brain', which is what I would have called the PDP-1, had I seen it in, say 1966. Jaw-dropping stuff. Thank you. (I wonder--what would it cost to build a perfect replica?)

@acmefixer1 4 года назад

There would be no reason to build a replica that uses 2000 watts of power and can't store anything on a hard disk. You could emulate the instruction set and display in software and it could be run on a smartphone.

@cleio13 3 года назад

@@acmefixer1 it can run on your calculator

@jonnyj. 2 года назад

@@acmefixer1 Tell that to the countless people 1000x smarter than you or me who have built exact replicas of the manchester baby, colossus ww2 code breaking computers, etc. There are PLENTY of reasons to build replicas, and thankfully, there are people not like you who are satisfied with emulators running on a phone...

@zorinlynx 6 лет назад

Thank you so much for this video. Seeing a machine in action that I read about in computer history books at the library while growing up was an amazing experience.

@wildatom669 5 лет назад

This was amazing to watch, thank you for taking me back in time!

@wolfgangnowak6219 5 лет назад

DEC. I still miss them. I just remember VMS (a little) and Digital Unix (True 64) on Alpha. They really made a great job. I remember having, flying on the wings of decadence, switched the shell for root on a Digital Unix Alpha )to /usr/local/bash. This worked quiet nice to the day, /usr/local could not be mounted - in the CRM i activated the singleusermode and the system defaulted to a statical linked shell in /sbin, IIRC. THANK YOU, DEC! You saved my newly begun job. They had a great philosophy. A simple one: Perfectionism.

@steveg219 7 лет назад

It is amazing to see the vision and implementation of this system so early in computer history

@paulelephant9521 6 лет назад

Wow, just wow! That old phosphor screen looks absolutely beautiful , I want to play Space War! 4k , quite amazing.

@jean-louisvillecroze4321 7 лет назад

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing and thanks to the Computer History Museum for keeping these machine 'alive' :)

@francoisp3625 6 лет назад

A real pleasure to see that one working. DEC were so .... nice ... even on VMS & TRU64 generations :)

@RarelyGaming 4 года назад

In all honesty, those were some of the most interesting 22 minutes i´ve ever had on youtube. Thank you both for explaining all of this.

@Ometecuhtli 6 лет назад

Such a beauty! Every wire connected by hand... it's an amazing piece of work.

@svenfruiti494 3 года назад

5:55 they made THIS almost over 60 years ago!!

@MatthewWilliamsFly 7 лет назад

I loved this!!!! Thanks for sharing, I had no idea about this machine and its capabilities. You brought it to life for me... and thanks to Lyle.

@darkusaurelius2853 7 лет назад

Excellent video. The efforts of the restoration team are impressive.

@boblake2340 6 лет назад

I used to work for DEC, and we had one under maintenance at Chalk River. I got a week long training with one of the designers. Played Space War on it too. :) This was in 1977.

@flymario8046 3 года назад

Incredible! Thank you Marc and Lyle! A real treat to watch this.

@dannyboy42223 5 лет назад

that machine is AMAZING! thanks for making this video tour!

@TheHolyMongolEmpire 5 лет назад

Incredible they could do that in the 1959 and 62. I would love to know how they knew or came up with how to program a game.

@andreasklindt7144 2 года назад

It is described in the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy from 1984. The book got updated and republished in 1994 and 2010 respectivly. There's also an audiobook version of the 2010 edition on audible.

@scottgfx 7 лет назад

I had no idea the PDP-1 display was bitmap. I always assumed it was vector based. Thanks Marc! Another awesome video!

@ThomasTalbotMD 7 лет назад

I think it is more like a vector-pixel display. The PDP-1 sends out a stream of data which I believe is in fact vector like, but the points map to discrete locations (with a gap).

@lbickley 7 лет назад

The display is actually a "point plot" display. You send it an x-coordinate, a y-coordinate and an intensify level and you get a single dot. 50us later you get to do it again.

@jecelassumpcaojr890 7 лет назад

That is correct: you give it two 10 bits numbers and it lights up one point of 1024 by 1024. If you light up two neighboring points it is possible to see a slight gap between them depending on the focus of the beam. You draw a line by lighting its individual points, so it looks like a bitmap unlike on a Vectrex videogame which has analog circuits to smoothly draw a line between two points. Despite this difference, it is correct to call both "vector displays".

@Pants4096 7 лет назад

I was wondering about that. Clearly there couldn't have been a frame buffer because that would represent more memory than the entire rest of the machine by a factor of ten or more.

@lordofthecats6397 7 лет назад

I'm confused, is it raster or vector?

@Sultaneous 2 года назад

Marc, thanks for bringing this to us, and a shout out to Lyle: Thank-you for your tireless effort and expertise in keeping this beast and valuable part of computing history alive and well. Today, we can see this machine. 50 years from now, videos like this may be our only archive. As a prof in comp sci, it helps to see where we have come from to help guide where we are headed.

@airingcupboard 6 лет назад

That was amazing and eye-opening. Thanks for making this!

@MaxKoschuh 7 лет назад

brilliant video. If I ever had the chance to visit the States, I have to visit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. I will be at the door at 10AM, and I will be the last one to leave at 8PM.

@rot_studios 7 лет назад

And come back the next day :D

@steveg219 7 лет назад

Ing. Max Koschuh One day won't be enough!

@MaxKoschuh 7 лет назад

yes, I guess I could stay there a whole week should not travel with a wife though,.... except a nerdy one

@mipmipmipmipmip 6 лет назад

I read this will be made into a new compute institute? is there still stuff open for public?

@thiesenf 5 лет назад

And it will make your GAS even worse... GAS = Gear Aqcuisition Syndrome.

@wizardofeyes 7 лет назад

Thank you very much for the video. My very first contact with a computer was a DEC PDP-8 running SpaceWar in 1971 in the Chemistry department at Cornell. My happiest programming was done on a PDP-11/45 in the next room. What I wouldn't give for another hour at that console. Many happy memories.

@michaelricketson1365 6 лет назад

Sweet. What kind of programs did you write?

@nicolek4076 4 года назад

Many years later, I was learning about debugging on the DecSystem 10. The program was called DDT. On the first page, the origin of the name was explained with a footnote stating that it should not be confused with the insecticide of the same name. The note went on to dryly note that both were used for elimination of bugs, though of, it was hoped, mutually exclusive classes.

@allangibson8494 4 года назад

Unfortunately there has been some historical crossover - roaches and vacuum tubes do not mix well.

@thomasw.eggers4303 2 года назад

I wrote DDT for the PDP-6 in 1964 (instead of going to my MIT classes). The note you refer to was created by the contract tech writer, Bill English, who wrote the assembly language programming manual. The note was kept in the manual over the nearly-dead bodies of the in-house tech writers who regarded it as "unprofessional".

@nicolek4076 2 года назад

@@thomasw.eggers4303 Thank you for that slice of history. I've always treasured that comment - it still tickles me.

@rdkeyser Год назад

@@nicolek4076 Thank you both for reminding me of the giggling joy I had back in 1973 while tracing for a suspected bug in the assembly language code of a GE Datanet-30 Front-End Processor for a GE 635 Mainframe computer. As I scanned the source code listing of the parsing logic that determined what type of remote system was to be interfaced, I found these hilarious comments: "Hippity hoppity, here come Big Blue and the Seven Dwarfs". Then followed code sections for IBM, GE, CDC, DEC, RCA, NCR, Burroughs, and Univac. Happily, no one at GE Pheonix had removed the comments as "unprofessional".

@babylonbabel 3 года назад

Way cool! Thank you for showing the PDP-1 to all of us! I've only just seen it referred to one or two times in books. That system was way ahead of it's time.

@longWriter 3 года назад

I started watching this video because I wanted to know the shapes of the ships is Spacewar. Kept watching because the rest of the content was so FASCINATING!!

@mspenrice 6 лет назад

Absolutely amazing, and Lyle seems like a really cool guy too :)

@twistedyogert 3 года назад

Smart guys with pony tails are always interesting.

@Vector_Ze 6 лет назад

Awesome that the PDP-1 is beautifully restored. Amazing work and machine.

@FuzzyTheBear 2 года назад

awesome :) thanks a million for the tour

@karanmungra5630 3 года назад

The best about this amazing piece of great Slug Russell is that it is free for any addition to the code.The final version of the game contained features from great hackers like Peter Samson, Kotak, etc. Just Great Porgrammers they are

@RWL2012 5 лет назад

A video game AND touchscreen in the 50s/60s - this thing was way ahead of its time!!!

@adamkampia 3 года назад

Seeing this for the first time. Mind absolutely blown. Thank you for this video. It was the perfect lunch break.

@Willian_Boa_Tarde 2 года назад

The spacewar graphics are actually nice! Thank you and Lyle for the awesome demonstration of this beautiful piece!

@carlosdiaz4535 7 лет назад

Simply amazing, thanks for give this knowledge to the new generations :)

@Whoami691 4 года назад

Hard to imagine that Spacewar! would have been over 20 years old by the time 3d games like elite were being created. It boggles my mind.

@sharadpoudel7116 6 лет назад

Wow. just enjoyed so much to be in this museum and actually see how PDP-1 works. The best part was to see SpaceWar getting loaded 13:00 and of course the Gameplay. Thank you so much for this detailed video. (thumbs up)

@williamcorcoran8842 3 года назад

This video will be valuable for the 1000 years. Great Job Lyle and Marc!

@MarquisDeSang 7 лет назад

Seeing assembly code gives me pleasure. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than ASM. It gives you a more intimate relationship with the machine and unlimited power.

@Doggeslife 5 лет назад

Conversation is always better without an interpreter ;-)

@LaserGryph 4 года назад

This piece of ancient computing is amazing.

@johnsmith-rk5mn 4 года назад

What an incredible job those scientists and engineers did back in the day. Thanks for sharing.

@acmefixer1 4 года назад

Thank you, Marc, for the look at DEC's first PDP. Everyone heard of the PDP-11 and VAX, but this is their ancestor. 👍👍

@doltBmB 3 года назад

I wonder, is the three-dots program deterministic or does it evolve differently each time?

@thesillyhatday 4 года назад

This would have blown my head off in 1959

@jidar 5 лет назад

What a fantastic video. Thank you for making this.

@alixilviashah7166 2 года назад

Excellent job CuriousMarc. Thank you so much man

@drjmansplace5174 6 лет назад

Pretty cool how this was done in 1959. Ironic how little things has changed far as the basics go.

@Maxxarcade 7 лет назад

This machine is amazing! I can't believe how sharp and clean that CRT still is too. Though I assume it's been replaced at some point? The inside is also very clean, considering the amount of airflow combined with age.

@lbickley 7 лет назад

To the best of our knowledge, the CRT is original. We did not replace it. The display, while relatively simple to program, was difficult to restore. It's complicated - analog stuff of this period often is ;) BTW: We clean the entire system on a preventative maintenance schedule...

@daveb5041 6 лет назад

Thats not true I replaced the CRT in april of 1984 with a new old stock screen from DEC. Also did you replace that caps in that? Every armchair internet expert knows that and nothing else

@1Madlycat 6 лет назад

Dave B how do we know you’re telling the truth?

@daveb5041 6 лет назад

Because I am lying.

@1Madlycat 6 лет назад

Dave B ah! Fantastic...

@enoz.j3506 4 года назад

what a nice guy demoing this remarkable machine,very interesting video,Thank you.

@Cheo97 4 года назад

Incredible, thanks for posting

@MarquisDeSang 7 лет назад

With any modern OS, it takes a minimum of 100 lines of code and 5 days of research on the internet to change the colour of a single pixel on screen. While back then in assembly it took only a single line of code.

@Spillerrec 5 лет назад

100 lines of code? Here: #include int main(){ SetPixel(GetDC(0), 1000,1000, RGB(255,0,0)); } That obviously didn't take me 5 days to figure out. I suggest you to check out the 4K PC demoscene, they challenge themselves to produce the most impressive audio/visual demonstrations while keeping the program size below 4096 bytes (including music, graphics, everything). That is even smaller than the 4 KW spacewar shown here if I understand correctly. There are a lot of reasons why we don't program like that today, but it can still be done and it is amazing what you can do with only 4 kilobyte.

@bighands69 5 лет назад

@@Spillerrec Most people today are software engineers and not programers.

@manuell3505 5 лет назад

Spillerec - If you hide everything in headers, every program only needs one line. How many machine instructions do you think that SetPixel call takes?

@Spillerrec 5 лет назад

@@manuell3505 it is a OS function, so as little as possible on Windows. It is not much, actually it is too little to be useful. Try running the code and observe what happens. What is the issue? If you actually is interested in why an OS makes it more complicated I can go more in depth of why you would appreciate that.

@manuell3505 5 лет назад

Spillerec - "OS functions" that consist of predefined software routines are technically not OS functions, but side-applications, as is SetPixel(), part of the Win API. Only user-, RAM- and storage I/O need to be managed to make a computer useable.

@flo89123 6 лет назад

World first pre-digital camera, world first game one of the , world first music ozillo graphs, world first digital diagnostic debug-tool. High res bitmap screen, smart design for easy fix , lpu´s that would fit todays standards of handling. World first 8 bit speakers omfg give a break. Makes me wonder what those guys all defined what we still see today as standard just by doing it and what holds the rest of humanity down from achieving such. We think we could never do so.We may have to think again

@BaNNshEy 5 лет назад

Are you having a stroke?

@Nemo-xq7fi 3 года назад

Waoo! really impressive ! That's really a piece of art, the hardware and software too... Thank you so much to keep this memory alive for future générations... Greetings from France

@dandymcgee Год назад

Amazing video, thanks for sharing.

@cornknight 6 лет назад

The legendary machine.

@dextertreehorn 6 лет назад

19:50 Odyssee 2001

@kennarajora6532 3 года назад

"I'm Afraid Dave"

@eve1972 4 года назад

This is so awesome, Thank you for sharing this

@paulg.3067 3 года назад

Thanks for sharing this cool peace of computer history!

@autious 7 лет назад

This is pretty amazing. As a software engineer, but a young one i've never seen one of these in person. I dream to one day write a program, punch it into tape and run it one of of these. That would be amazing to me. Thanks for this.

@swiftfox3461 7 лет назад

Max Danielsson Likewise for me. I hope to see one of these giants in person one day. Perhaps even buy one in retirement as a /very/ expensive hobby ;)

@MaxKoschuh 7 лет назад

I love this idea

@markanderson8066 6 лет назад

Max Danielsson my first computer was the pdp-8e in my high school! It had mag tape and 4 teletype machines

@owo1744 5 лет назад

@@swiftfox3461 There are only 3 PDP-1's known to exist currently.

@bighands69 5 лет назад

I would highly recommend "structure and interpretation of computer programs" for any aspiring software engineer.

@afloyd4976 6 лет назад

Has anyone found the Magic / More Magic switch yet?

@dinospumoni5611 3 года назад

That was riveting. Thanks Marc and Lyle.

@kerryedavis 2 года назад

The PDP-12 used the same kind of display system, but with a 4:3 type TV CRT instead. One common result was that software such as the LAP6-DIAL operating system for PDP-12 would use the CRT as a CRT display terminal where you could edit programs and such, using the ASR-33 teletype keyboard for input but without wasting paper on the teletype printer. (Also without making as much noise...) Which also meant that display updates were more or less instantaneous, rather than having to be printed out at 10cps. And by using the analog voltage input controls, you could move the "cursor" to different points in text for editing... really genius when you think about it.

@MarquisDeSang 7 лет назад

This thing can do more than Windows 10 S wow!

@mm-hl7gh 7 лет назад

awesome to see this! thanks for making these. Also, @CuriousMarc .. if you want to see what modern programmers do with 4k today, see this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rML-KvlWk5s.html let me know if you want the exe file for this (which is 4096 bytes in size)

@nealmcb 7 лет назад

Wow - thanks! After a bit of sleuthing, it seems that this is an entry of the "4K Intro Compo" type for Windows, as described at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene_compo and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo_(computer_programming)

@ScoopexUs 6 лет назад

I have to protest, since 4k intros on Windows make full use of available frameworks, which are hundreds of Megabytes in size, and the millions of times faster CPUs 58 years later. In other words, in no way are modern programmers 250 million times better at programming. ;) Insiders will know why this Windows 4k is a good one over the other Windows 4ks.

@TonyBenBrahim 6 лет назад

4KB binary, hundreds of Megs of OS and graphics DLLs from Windows, not comparable with a machine that has at most 16KB.

@jfbaquero 5 лет назад

Simply amazing! Thanks.

@bikkyghaisai7692 2 года назад

Spectacular video. Did not know they had this sort of advanced computers in 1960. Great job of preserving and restoring one. It is very good learning for schoolkids, like going to the farm and learning where milk comes from....

@daveb5041 6 лет назад

Its only been on 3 years and two months? I would expect more considering I had a computer that was never shut off for four years. That video game is way better then atari seems like atari had more memory.

@Xezlec 6 лет назад

Nope. Atari 2600 had 128 bytes. This has about 12000 "words", and each of those words was more than twice the size of a byte. So the PDP-1 had roughly 200 times as much memory as the Atari 2600, despite being almost 20 years earlier!

@lawrencedoliveiro9104 6 лет назад

Why did light pens fall out of use? The same reason why these desktop/laptop touch screens have not been a big success: “gorilla arm”. Drawing with a pen/stylus only makes sense on a horizontal or near-horizontal surface, not a vertical one.

@Piero71 5 лет назад

Beautiful!! thank you so much for share!!

@Trenchbroom 6 лет назад

One of the most fascinating videos on RU-vid. Thanks for making this!

@atranas6018 6 лет назад

Spacewar is 100 times more fun than Pong!

@flatfingertuning727 5 лет назад

Actually, real Pong is a lot of fun, but what many people think of as Pong was an imitation by General Instruments. Real Pong had four upward angles and four downward angles, but the GI chip only does two of each. The difference between having two angles and four might not seem like much visually, but it makes a huge difference to playability.