Tektronix 4051 Graphics Computer from the 1970's EBAY auction

[nikola-wan]

This computer has been on EBAY for some time - likely due to the $2500 asking price and unknown condition (does not boot).

ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-4051-Graphics-System-from-1975

Keyboard looks in good condition.

Some of the 'documents' they include are my scan of the 4050 BASIC quick reference booklet and my colored 4051/4052 address map - both posted on bitsavers.org folder on the Tektronix 405x computers.

The 4050 computers do not display any text on powerup - they just display a blinking cursor and are ready to accept input of BASIC commands or programs, like PRINT "HELLO" which will print HELLO on the display.

We have folks with lots of experience with this series of Tektronix computers on this forum - most of the posts in the "Other" forum.

I have two 4050 computers - one 4054A that is fully working and one 4052 that needs to be repaired. I have uploaded dozens of recovered 4050 BASIC programs to my github repository of Tektronix 4050 programs at:

github.com/mmcgraw74/Tektronix-4051-4052-4054-Program-Files

One of our active forum members has created a Tek405xEmulator that runs from Google Chrome - also posted on github:

github.com/jonbstanley/Tek405xEmulator

These computers are very rare - but quite capable with state of the art 1024x780 vector graphics from the 1970's.

I hope someone on this forum is interested in adding this computer to their vintage computer collection

 

[nikola-wan]

Examples of what this computer can do include hires "greenscale" bit-mapped graphics:

and vector text and drawings - photo taken from my 4054A 19" storage screen:

And a screenshot from the Tek405xEmulator running my program to display the Tektronix 4114 Terminal plot file of the StarWars "Death Star". The emulator does not do justice to the perfectly straight vectors drawn on the real 4050 computers:

 

[NeXT]

It's got the comms package too, so you can hang it off any host machine that supports Tek graphics modes.

I'd be all over it if it was about two grand cheaper.

 

[ebaybrad1]

Man i love vector monitors. Very temperamental, but awesome.

 

[nikola-wan]

Man i love vector monitors. Very temperamental, but awesome.

Me too, Brad.

Right now my 19" 4054 is working great - and I'm debugging my port of ADVENTURE64 by Jim Butterfield for the Commodore PET with floppy disk to the Tektronix 4050 computers with the Tektronix 4907 8-inch floppy disk system.

Jim was able to get the program to fit in 32KB of RAM in the PET with BASIC by abridging the 350pt Adventure FORTRAN version down to a 300pt version.

I've been running the ADVENTURE64 on a Commodore 64 with 1541 floppy drive to compare with my port.

Jim took extensive advantage of Commodore BASIC bit operations to compress the size of the map and other files - tragically, the Tektronix 4051/4052/4054 did not include any bit operations until the 4052A/4054A last versions of the 4050 series of computers.

Tek 4050 BASIC also never supported string arrays, nor '0' as an index to numeric arrays, so my Tektronix BASIC program is a bit too large to work on the original 4051/4052/4054 computers without adding a subroutine for bit operations.

The Commodore BASIC program also took advantage of multiple statements per line - also not available in Tektronix 4050 BASIC.

Right now, I have the Tektronix program running on my 4054 with all the Commodore data files converted to Tektronix data files on an 8-inch floppy.

I'm able to navigate through the rooms and am fixing my remaining porting logic bugs.

I enjoyed playing ADVENTURE on an Apple II in the early '80s - with the MICROSOFT ADVENTURE floppy disk - which I still have.

Monty