Tektronix 4014 Terminal Enhanced Graphics Point Plot - on Tektronix 4050 Computers
Tektronix 4014 Terminal Enhanced Graphics Point Plot - on Tektronix 4050 Computers
I found a great github repository called "Tek4010":
https://github.com/rricharz/Tek4010.
He has created a Tektronix 4010/4014 terminal emulator program that runs on Raspberry Pi - or in my case Ubuntu linux running on Windows 10.
It is a little challenging to set up - as you also need to add X-windows support to Windows 10 (already in Raspberry Pi). I installed VcXsrv for X-windows support.
Once everything is installed - you compile and run the tek4010 application on a Tektronix 401x terminal *.plt plot file and you see how amazing the Tektronix terminals were!
I have some of the plt files posted on my Tektronix 4050 site with Tek BASIC programs that emulated the output - based on capturing the vectors and converting them to move and draw commands. If you have the serial backpack for your Tek 4050 - you can send the plt files directly as Tektronix built into the serial backpack ROMs a Tektronix terminal emulator for vectors.
However, most interesting to me was trying to run on the Tek4010 terminal emulator the "Special Point Plot Mode" plt files I had found. The Tek 4050 terminal emulator ROMs do NOT support that mode - and the old linux tekplot utility also does NOT support that mode. Even the Tek4010 emulator (when I found it last week) did NOT support that mode correctly (he had no files to test).
I sent him a couple of my files - he fixed a couple of bugs in his emulator and posted several of the point plot mode files I provided. However - they are quite dim, and may not look like they would if plotted on a real 4014 terminal with Enhanced Graphics option.
He then developed a new program he called maketekimage that you can create a plt file from your own photos - that makes the images look great!
Here are two example plot outputs - Leonard Nimoy as Spock in the original plt file I had and a point plot output file generated from maketekimage using a color photo I found in an internet search.
The new plt file - was also output from Rene's Tek4010 program.
From Chuck Forsberg's partially archived website on archive dot org
https://web.archive.org/web/20120118051527/http://www.omen.com/tek/tek.html - we find a file with background information on how some of the images were created. In particular, "point plot" files were scanned by a "University of Maryland Flying Spot Scanner which was used to digitize nuclear decay traces".
Since the Tektronix 4014 Enhanced Graphics terminal had a non-linear brightness curve - and the scanner may have been more linear brightness - that might explain why the point plot images from Chuck's site show a little dim on the PC screen.
If anyone has a working 4014 with Enhanced Graphics - I would be interested in a photo of these point plot files viewed on that terminal!
Of course I had to experiment and created a Tektronix 4014 point plot file of me with my full size Star Wars BB-8 droid
My costume in this picture is based on the "Poe Dameron" character in Star Wars "Last Jedi" movie - since BB-8 was owned by Poe
Now I'm working on how to do point plots on my 4054A - and even the 4051. Biggest limitation is we need big storage - like my 4907 floppy drive to input the plt file, or slow serial port.