Posts

Tektronix 4051/4052/4054 MONOPOLY Game

Image
  Tektronix 4051/4052/4054 MONOPOLY Game for 4051 with 32KB RAM, 4052/4052A, and 4054/4054A computers with R12/Fast Graphics ROM PACK and GPIB Flash Drive. I used a Tektronix 4051 computer at my first job in the US Air Force in 1977 - long before the introduction of the Apple II and other personal computers. I learned how to program in BASIC on that computer and wrote several programs for work after writing several game programs including porting BASIC programs from listings in early microcomputer magazines like BYTE. In 1979 I began writing a MONOPOLY program in BASIC, but my program used all of the 32KB of RAM in the 4051 for drawing the board - so the game was never working. I did make printouts of all my 4051 BASIC programs, and in April 2024 someone had asked if any MONOPOLY programs were written in BASIC - and I found my 1979 MONOPOLY program listing and decided to try to finish my program. Here is the first page of my original MONOPOLY BASIC program - printed on 3M dry silver pa
Post a Comment
Read more

My first job was in the US Air Force

Image
  My first job after graduating from Texas A&M University was as a Lieutenant in the US Air Force in Los Angeles, California at Los Angeles Air Force Base. I was the headquarters engineer responsible for the recovery equipment in a top-secret program that is now declassified - to recover spy satellite film capsules using a fleet of C-130 aircraft and HH-53 helicopters based in Hawaii. These USAF HH-53 helicopters and USAF naval ships were also responsible for recovering all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts after their space capsule parachuted into the Pacific Ocean. In the photo below - you can see a C-130 recovering a 'small' 200 pound test capsule, and a second photo recovering a 1000 pound test capsule suspended from a much larger parachute. I encouraged the USAF to purchase a Tektronix 4051 Computer in 1977, soon after it was introduced and used it to develop programs to simplify and speed-up the process of analyzing high speed movie film of training of
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
I took my BB-8 to a "CodeWars" March 2019 competition for high-school students, to discuss how I learned to 3D print the body and dome and how my drive electronics worked. I also took this BB-8 to StarWars Celebration Chicago in April 2019.
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
More photos of my droid building hobby 😁 This photo includes Matt Denton, the electronics wizard behind "The Force Awakens" BB-8 animatronics in the middle. Matt Denton autograph on my BB-8 dome - plus his binary encoded BB8 signature I packed my R2-D2 and BB-8 in our Honda Fit for the trip to Celebration Orlando 2017 My R2-D2 and my BB-8 trapped with a net Proud builder with his droids The droid builders room had several great photo op booths Don't miss the Droid Races at the convention Sean Shaffer (my grandson), droid builder (I need to find his name), and Monty as 'Luke' at the convention. Cosplay 'Rey' with my BB-8 Young-ling Jedi with my BB-8 Houston Area Droid Builders - first meeting in summer of 2017 Houston Area Droid Builders - Facebook link
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
Here is a video of me driving my BB-8 without the dome in February 2017. Monty's BB-8 body - first baby steps test drive I have been working on my BB-8 build since 2015 - after watching the Disney BB-8 drive around the stage during Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in April 2015 before seeing the Star Wars "The Force Awakens" in Dec 2015. Full thread of my BB-8 Build Log on BB-8 Builders Club website: Monty-s-BB8-build-log I'm now working on stabilizing the drive - before I try attaching the dome to the body.
Post a Comment
Read more

Tektronix 4051 / 4052 / 4054 Computers

Image
I got my first personal computer experience using a Tektronix 4051 vector graphics computer at my first job in the USAF in the late 1970s.  I learned to write program in Tektronix 4050 BASIC and developed several programs for the USAF to automate high-speed training film data capture displaying the film on a large digitizing tablet and plotting the results to match a mainframe computer using used by our contractor to plot results on a Calcomp plotter. I also ported many game programs from magazines like Byte to the Tektronix 4051.  I discovered through a tip from the Tektronix sales engineer how to call an assembly language program from Tektronix BASIC - and wrote a couple of assembly language programs to play music and draw text and graphics. After I retired (the first time - I'm back at work now) I purchased a Tektronix 4052 and a 4054 - see photo below.  The 4052 came with a custom cabinet plus the hard copy unit.  I purchased the 4054 for $17 AS-IS not working, on EBAY, and m
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
Here is a pair of photos: my current progress on R2-D2 with a photo of my BB-8 (unpainted) body panels and dome partially assembled. and a photo of me driving R2 at a Houston HP Kid's Day Lego Mindstorms competition this year:
Post a Comment
Read more

Monty's BB-8

Image
I've been working on my BB-8 this past year. I purchased an Ultimaker 2 3D printer to print the body panels and dome as shown in the next photo: , and have also purchased many ServoCity ( https://www.ServoCity.com )  parts including their Actobotics round baseplate shown in the next photo - as the hub to support my pendulum drive design.  Other ServoCity mechanical parts I have purchased include bearings and thrust washers for the differential gearbox in the center of the last photo.  Now it is time to order some servo motors with the powerful ServoCity servo gearboxes - which I will use to move the dome gimbals and rotate the dome from the body - using an array of magnets shown in the magnet mount at the top of the next picture. Here is my Autodesk 123d design for my pendulum drive - you can see a ServoCity ServoBlock at the top of the picture to rotate the dome (through magnets located in the 3D printed magnet holder: Many thanks to the BB-8 Builders Club ( h
Post a Comment
Read more