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Tektronix 4051 / 4052 / 4054 Computers

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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,...
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Tektronix 4051/4052/4054 MONOPOLY Game

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  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 silve...
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My first job was in the US Air Force

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  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...
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