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Hunting down Ken's PDP-7: video footage found

38 points by bsdimp 7y ago

folkhack 7y ago
Man stuff I love stuff like this - what a trip. Reminds me a lot of Xerox's mother of all demos (in the same year 1968). These animations/graphics have such a wonderful feel to them that are still compelling and interesting in 2019 =) What an amazing video.
- maartenh 7y ago
  Are you referring to Doug Engelbart's demo of the Online System (NLS) [1]? He was at SRI at the moment. The things that happened at Xerox after that were inspired by NLS, and build by some of the people that worked on it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
  - folkhack 7y ago
    That's the one! This early stuff gives me chills man - I'm so into it. Pioneers of a new era =)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dijksterhuis 7y ago
I really enjoyed that video. Soundtrack was brill
acqq 7y ago
"this film features the song "Daisy" sung by a computer, a plot point that would feature heavily in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." The mentioned Bell Labs film is apparently from 1968, but it seems that the Daisy song inspired Clarke already in 1962 and 2001 was already made before that film and released in April 1968: https://kottke.org/06/04/hal-daisy-2001 https://kottke.org/06/04/hal-daisy-2001 "In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke was touring Bell Labs when he heard a demonstration of a song sung by an IBM 704 computer programmed by physicist John L. Kelly. The song, the first ever performed by a computer, was called “Daisy Bell”, more commonly known as “Bicycle Built for Two” or “Daisy, Daisy”."
14 7y ago
Wow what a video and the whole time I was saying this is 1968. Incredible. So many things I forget half of them. A digital stylus on a CRT display with real time input able to change the program on the fly and run simulations to test said programs. I saw what really reminded me of the Matrix drop text effect however it was on the horizontal. Computer speech and programing the various sounds. And Finally, at 14:27 in the video someone please chime in here are they showing a QR code back in the day? They show what looks to be a QR code while talking about how computers will allow us to communicate visually in ways we can yet to imagine. Very cool video I recommend the short watch.
- bsdimp 7y ago
  It's not QR code, per se, but something quite similar...
vaxman 7y ago
<sniffle>

38 points by bsdimp 7y ago

Man stuff I love stuff like this - what a trip. Reminds me a lot of Xerox's mother of all demos (in the same year 1968). These animations/graphics have such a wonderful feel to them that are still compelling and interesting in 2019 =) What an amazing video.

maartenh 7y ago
Are you referring to Doug Engelbart's demo of the Online System (NLS) [1]? He was at SRI at the moment. The things that happened at Xerox after that were inspired by NLS, and build by some of the people that worked on it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
- folkhack 7y ago
  That's the one! This early stuff gives me chills man - I'm so into it. Pioneers of a new era =)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dijksterhuis 7y ago

I really enjoyed that video. Soundtrack was brill

acqq 7y ago

"this film features the song "Daisy" sung by a computer, a plot point that would feature heavily in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." The mentioned Bell Labs film is apparently from 1968, but it seems that the Daisy song inspired Clarke already in 1962 and 2001 was already made before that film and released in April 1968: https://kottke.org/06/04/hal-daisy-2001 https://kottke.org/06/04/hal-daisy-2001 "In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke was touring Bell Labs when he heard a demonstration of a song sung by an IBM 704 computer programmed by physicist John L. Kelly. The song, the first ever performed by a computer, was called “Daisy Bell”, more commonly known as “Bicycle Built for Two” or “Daisy, Daisy”."

14 7y ago

Wow what a video and the whole time I was saying this is 1968. Incredible. So many things I forget half of them. A digital stylus on a CRT display with real time input able to change the program on the fly and run simulations to test said programs. I saw what really reminded me of the Matrix drop text effect however it was on the horizontal. Computer speech and programing the various sounds. And Finally, at 14:27 in the video someone please chime in here are they showing a QR code back in the day? They show what looks to be a QR code while talking about how computers will allow us to communicate visually in ways we can yet to imagine. Very cool video I recommend the short watch.

bsdimp 7y ago
It's not QR code, per se, but something quite similar...

vaxman 7y ago