Post #4383982

2026-08-04 21:31 UTC

Soo been a while since I posted; you may have seen I mentioned I have a new adventure Welll... I've been working on a recently acquired Tektronix 4010 vector terminal at @nottinghack@hachyderm.io This is the first machine which launched the iconic 4010 series vector graphics terminals which relied on the unique storage tube technology to display vector graphics without having to constantly rescan the image If this sounds confusing, here's a really good video from EMF 2024 by @stepleton@oldbytes.space describing the operation better than I could ever do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ind_2eMzsbM This is where I have gotten so far... #tektronix #tektronix4010 #vectorgraphics #terminal #vintagecomputing

Replies (1)

@crashtestdev@woof.tech 2026-08-04 21:47

@nottinghack@hachyderm.io The story began on Friday 24th July 2026, when I see this holy grail of computing history on eBay for a price I can afford; and ensuring I am not dreaming, I buy it Cut to the very next day, I roll into Nottingham hackspace on my Sinclair C5 after doing half a day at Nottingham pride to meet with the seller who insisted they drive 2 hours to hand deliver it to me This turned out to be nearly perfect, as @philpem@digipres.club (who I cannot thank ENOUGH) happened to be down, and I discovered on that day they happen to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Tektronix equipment and documentation to the point where they instantly told me where it was made as soon as I had removed the front cover and showed the Sharpied on serial number The original owner reported that they turned it on once, saw the whole screen light up and immediately turned it off, given that these CRTs are very rare and very bespoke, that is an understandable reaction, however based off of advice from Tom Stepleton (from the very good video above) and the user manual (which the previous owner had) showed this is normal, and you simply need to press PAGE to clear the screen. Getting the front panel off showed a more pressing problem though, a fuse had blown! #tektronix #tektronix4010 #vectorgraphics #terminal #vintagecomputing

Open ##4383981