Evans & Sutherland LDS-1

[larsbrinkhoff]

There was an Evans & Sutherland graphical display, LDS-1.

[larsbrinkhoff]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDS-1_(Line_Drawing_System-1)

[larsbrinkhoff]

Maybe only one, connected to DM?

[larsbrinkhoff]

@dlebling618 wrote:

Other additions that were made to the Maze universe included Tak To's "Maze Watcher," which displayed a top-down view of an ongoing game on the Evans and Sutherland LDS-1 display computer (people would cluster around it and cheer on their friends)

http://www.digibarn.com/history/04-VCF7-MazeWar/stories/lebling.html

[larsbrinkhoff]

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/evansAndSutherland/lds-1/

[larsbrinkhoff]

Some photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9330414@N05/albums/72157631998999666

[larsbrinkhoff]

Article about LDS-1 software on display in a museum:
https://sdtimes.com/aaron-marcus/sfmoma-elevates-software-art/

Some pictures here:
https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Aaron_Marcus/

[larsbrinkhoff]

DDT can disassemble LDS-1 instructions with the $E typeout mode.

Pseudo location ..ESSYM controls presence of display instruction symbols.

[larsbrinkhoff]

MAZE has a little "E&S" code, probably for the benefit of the game watcher program.

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/src/klh/mazser.141#L476-L477, and see ESSWS

[larsbrinkhoff]

Muddle had some support for the E&S display, but it's commented out. MUDDLE ORDER says the DISPLAY SUBR is obsolete as of MUD55.

[larsbrinkhoff]

LDS-1 at 6:44: http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/Overview/videos/MolGraphics-Feibelman.mp4

[larsbrinkhoff]

Case Western had an LDS-1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Western_Reserve_University#Computing

Project Logos, under ARPA contract, was begun within the department on a DEC System-10 (later converted to TENEX (BBN) in conjunction with connection to the ARPANET) to develop a computer-aided computer design system. This system consisted in a distributed, networked, graphics environment, a control and data flow designer and logic (both hardware and software) analyzer. Graphics and animation became another departmental focus with the acquisition of an Evans & Sutherland LDS-1 (Line Drawing System-1), which was hosted by the DEC System-10, and later with the acquisition of the stand-alone LDS-2.

[larsbrinkhoff]

BBN had an LDS-1: http://wwcm.synology.me/pdf/Installation%20Notes%20(ARPA).pdf

B. Peripheral equipment (see also the hardware diagram) includes: ...

8. An Evans and Sutherland LDS-1 display system

[larsbrinkhoff]

Paul Rubin posted to alt.sys.pdp10:

LDS-1 Spacewar was amazing to watch, though it looked like it took quite a lot of practice to play. There was a box with a row of toggle switches (maybe 16 or 18 of them?) and you used them to control the ships. The ships could move around freely on the screen, iirc there was a star (sun) in the middle of the screen whose gravitational force was a game parameter, and other cool things like that. I don't know of any modern video game anything like it.

[larsbrinkhoff]

@jh95468, do you remember seeing Spacewar on the DM LDS-1?

[larsbrinkhoff]

@gregt590, I understand there was an Evans & Sutherland LDS-1 at NASA Ames. Did you see it? If so, what are your recollections?

[larsbrinkhoff]

I'm hoping @ddssff can chime in.

[gregt590]

Yes. Jim Hart had a color E&S line drawing system in his computer graphics lab at NASA/Ames while I, Howard Palmer, Steve Colley and others were working there. I didn’t work with it much. Howard and I mainly worked on the Imlacs but I think Jim Clark and others were using it.

Greg Thompson gregt@alum.mit.edu

Sent from my iPhone

On May 7, 2019, at 4:57 AM, Lars Brinkhoff notifications@github.com wrote: I'm hoping @ddssff can chime in.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

@gregt590, I understand there was an Evans & Sutherland LDS-1 at NASA Ames. Did you see it? If so, what are your recollections?

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[larsbrinkhoff]

From Michael Laznovsky:

Spacewar was one of the main uses we had for the LDS-1 at Frick (along with making a movie, and just farting around); a few of us used to spend late nights blasting each other using the SKBL (Switches, Knobs, Buttons, and Lights) that passed for a user interface... come to think of it, not too different from the arcade version, really. Just a bit more expensive hardware :))

(Frick Chemistry Laboratory at Princeton University)

[ddssff]

I'm hoping @ddssff can chime in.

Oh wow I remember, I remember it all. I think I wrote a clone of Spacewars for a computer graphics course at Brown. The orbital mechanics were so great, you had to get your orbit right and then swoop in on your victim. I don't think the arcade game had the sun in the middle, but I could be wrong.

So, what's going on here? What is this github repo about? What is this E&S LDS-1 issue and what does it mean that its closed?

[larsbrinkhoff]

Thank you @ddssff.

I sent you an email with a longer explanation, but maybe that got lost. This repository is about MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System. We are a small group trying to restore as much software as possible, and emulate many of the hardware devices. There's more in the README file.

Licklider's Dynamic Modeling group at Project MAC had an LDS-1 attached to their PDP-10 running ITS. As such the LDS-1 falls within the scope of our research. Unfortunately, very little software from the DM group has been saved, and so far nothing for the LDS-1 has been found. And indeed nothing elsewhere either.

I opened this issue to collect notes on the LDS-1, hoping to find something. I closed it later when I realized it's unlikely we'll ever find anything. However, lately there's been a new flurry of messages and I learned some more about the LDS-1 installations and that there was a version of Spacewar.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Princeton LDS-1 again. Source: http://luminary.stanford.edu/langridge/slideShow/10.htm Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9330414@N05/8182034018/in/album-72157631998999666/

[larsbrinkhoff]

A closer look.

[ddssff]

Haha I never looked at that panel. I do remember playing spacewar on that machine all night long.

[larsbrinkhoff]

This might be the aircraft carrier demo. Found on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHhYAUgY3S0&t=87s

[ddssff]

Here is an emulation of the original spacewar game: https://spacewar.oversigma.com

[larsbrinkhoff]

Thanks @ddssff, that's the original PDP-1 Spacewar. The feature set is quite basic. Is this how you remember the LDS-1 version?

There are other PDP-6 and -10 versions with more features: multiple suns, up to 4-5 players, aiming beacon. I collected some here: https://github.com/PDP-10/Spacewar

[larsbrinkhoff]

Another video with the carrier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMpQuclk2vg&t=25s

[ddssff]

@larsbrinkhoff the only features I remember beyond this was hyperspace, and I am pretty sure the missiles were affected by the sun's gravity.

[larsbrinkhoff]

File names from Dynamic Modeling .TAPE backup records:

• ESDEMO; PCBRD BIN
• ESDEMO; RECOG BIN
• ESDEMO; TS CITGO
• ESDEMO; TS FLY
• ESDEMO; TS KALEID
• ESDEMO; GDT'S ACTOR
• ESDEMO; CARIER DUMP
• ESDEMO; TS SNOW

I'm guessing CARIER is the famous aircraft carrier demo. No sign of Spacewar.

[jh95468]

The Oct8 youtube video shows the carrier as I remember it from DM in the early 70s. The part from 0:29 on is very familiar. It shows a successful takeoff and landing. Much more familiar was a flight from successful takeoff through crashing into the carrier or running off the other end. One bug/feature we discovered was that to land successfully you only had to get your plane to zero altitude and speed while it was located on the top of the deck. That meant you could successfully land by coming in from the side. You could even land by coming in underneath the deck and gaining altitude to pop up onto the deck surface. All this from extensive "experimentation".... /Jack Haverty, MIT-DM 1970-1977.

[larsbrinkhoff]

From KH; ARC 1:

A VERY
SOPHISTICATED DISPLAY DEVICE, AN EVANS & SUTHERLAND LDS-1 IS ALSO AVAILABLE, BUT
FREQUENTLY IS IN A STATE OF DISREPAIR.  THE DISPLAY FEATURE HARDWARE ROTATIONS,
TRANSLATIONS AND SCALINGS, AS WELL AS HARDWARE CLIPPING AND WINDOWING.  ONE OF THE
SCOPES ON THE LDS-1 IS A COLOR CRT UTILIZING THE WRITE-THROUGH TECHNIQUE OF COLOR
GENERATION, ONE IS A HIGH PERSISTENCE SCOPE, AND THE THIRD IS A HIGH SPEED SCOPE.
THE ONLY SOFTWARE AVAILABLE TO DRIVE THIS BEAST IS WRITTEN IN MUDDLE (OR MUDDLE
GRAPHICS AS THE EXTENSION IS CALLED).  INFORMATION WHICH HAS BEEN PROCESSED BY THE
LDS-1 CAN OPTIONALLY BE REDISPLAYED ON AN ARDS IF ONE IS STILL AVAILABLE.  GRAPHIC
INPUT CAN BE EFFECTED BY A SYLVANIA GRAPHIC TABLET.

This text is not in any file, but in some unused portion of the archive.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Rick Shiffman wrote 5th October 2018, 8:43 AM:

In the 1970s I was a physics major at USC I got corrupted by computers got a job as a computer operator at USC which paid my tuition and got me spending money. using the ARPANET, which we just got access to, I wrote my class project for CS 575 using MIT-DMCG over the NET. It was a line drawing computer graphics system that emulated an Evens & Sutherland LDS-1, an incredible piece of hardware at that time. MIT used my graphic system MIGS for 10 years After the matrix multiplier in the LDS-1's hardware died and could not be repaired. The MIGS software could do sub-picturing, transformations, and 3-D projection down to a two dimensional screen on most vector drawing display terminals. Migs was coded in muddle a dialect of lisp, it got me the TA ship for the course and my job at USC-ISI.

From https://www.sololearn.com/Discuss/1529403/how-many-of-you-work-as-a-programmer-without-a-degree

[larsbrinkhoff]

Advertisement. From http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads-1970s/2

[larsbrinkhoff]

From Richard Weissberg's thesis "Using Interactive Graphics in Simulating the Hospital Emergency Room", an actual photo of the Dynamic Modeling LDS-1. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0780437.pdf

[dlebling618]

This looks like 545 Tech Square, ninth floor, just to the left of the DM PDP-10.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Thank you. It's hard to make out any details in that photo.

[larsbrinkhoff]

From a brochure.

[larsbrinkhoff]

I'm hearing rumors that the aircraft carrier demo mentioned above was written by Danny Cohen, who also wrote the ORLY flight simulator first running on the Harvard PDP-10 and PDP-1 (later also at ISI).

[dlebling618]

It certainly sounds plausible, but I can't confirm it. He worked with Ivan Sutherland, for sure. My recollection is that the Aircraft Carrier demo came with the E&S: it was a great diagnostic.

Dave

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 5:33 AM Lars Brinkhoff @.***> wrote:

I'm hearing rumors that the aircraft carrier demo mentioned above was written by Danny Cohen, who also wrote the ORLY flight simulator first running on the Harvard PDP-10 and PDP-1 (later also at ISI).

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/PDP-10/its/issues/616#issuecomment-1061632737, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGAFV7XVQZDCDD7BPNVKZ2DU64UHJANCNFSM4EMROQSA . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675 or Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub.

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[sandsmuseum]

Such memories. I was responsible for maintaining the software on an LDS-2 at NASA Ames. It was connected to a Burroughs B5500 which ran the aircraft dynamics and an analog computer that handled the cockpit instruments and pilot inputs. Mostly we ran landing simulations. NASA had "cattle trailers" with instruments, aircraft controls and seats, and a culminating lens in front of the display.

During my off hours a coworker and I programmed a space war game. The space craft dynamics were so realistic we were lucky to stabilize the ship let alone go hunting for our opponent. Some of the researchers at NASA liked it so much they used it as a pilot loading task.

Good times.