{"id":20539,"date":"2018-06-19T14:56:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T18:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=20539"},"modified":"2018-09-25T09:23:26","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T13:23:26","slug":"imlac-pds-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/06\/19\/imlac-pds-4\/","title":{"rendered":"IMLAC PDS-4"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A user works at an IMLAC PDS-4.\u00a0Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, Unites Kingdom.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/darth-azrael.tumblr.com\/post\/175014043629\/dinosaurspen-a-user-works-at-an-imlac<\/a><\/p>\n

The IMLAC PDS-4 was an updated version of the PDS-1 which was originally released in 1970. The PDS-1 is a graphical display system that was used in the 1970s. It included A CRT monitor (vector display), control panel, and desk pedastal which contained a 16-bit minicomputer, core memory and display processor.<\/p>\n

The PDS-1 while low cost for its time compared to other similar computers was hugely expensive by today’s standards. The base model would set you back about $8,300 which is over $54,000 in today’s dollars. It was used to develop one of the first hypertext systems and was also used as a component in larger systems including a newspaper layout and typesetting system. But it was an early game development and gaming system too. Spacewar! started out as a demo on the PDP-1 and and later expanded for the PDS-1. The first online multiplayer computer game, Mazewar, was also first created on a couple of PDS-1s. Perhaps most interestingly, Frogger started life as a game called Freeway that was developed on a PDS-1 as a psychology experiment related to the study of short-term memory. It was commercialized by Konami and titled “Highway Crossing Frog” before Sega decided Frogger was a better name.<\/p>\n

The PDS-4 was very similar to the PDS-1 but it was twice as fast and able to display twice as many lines of text without flicker. Like the PDS-1, the PDS-4 was built to order and not mass produced. Approximately 700 PDS-4s were sold in the U.S. by 1977.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

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  1. https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/06\/19\/imlac-pds-4\/\n
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    • Link to the photo as I found it is here. This was found on Tumblr but no original source was given.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Imlac_PDS-1<\/li>\n
    • https:\/\/eightiesforum.blogspot.com\/2007_09_01_archive.html<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      A user works at an IMLAC PDS-4.\u00a0Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, Unites Kingdom. http:\/\/darth-azrael.tumblr.com\/post\/175014043629\/dinosaurspen-a-user-works-at-an-imlac The IMLAC PDS-4 was an updated version of the PDS-1 which was originally released in 1970. The PDS-1 is a graphical display system that was used in the 1970s. It included A CRT monitor (vector display), control panel, and desk pedastal which contained a 16-bit minicomputer, core memory and display processor. The PDS-1 while low cost for its time compared to other similar computers was hugely expensive by today’s standards. The base model would set you back about $8,300 which is over $54,000 in today’s dollars. It was used to develop one of the first hypertext systems and was also used as a component in larger systems including a newspaper layout and typesetting system. But it was an early game development and gaming system too. Spacewar! started out as a demo on the PDP-1 and and later expanded for the PDS-1. The first online multiplayer computer game, Mazewar, was also first created on a couple of PDS-1s. Perhaps most interestingly, Frogger started life as a game called Freeway that was developed on a PDS-1 as a psychology experiment related to the study of short-term memory. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3236,3237,2362],"class_list":["post-20539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-arcana","tag-imlac","tag-pds-4","tag-retrocomputing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}