Tektronix 4052

The Tektronix 4052, released in 1978, was a graphics-capable desktop microcomputer designed for scientific and engineering applications. It featured a vector-driven direct-view storage CRT display, similar to Tektronix’s 4010 terminal, allowing it to retain images without requiring video RAM. The system was powered by a 16-bit processor built from four AMD 2901 bit-slice processors, microcoded to emulate a Motorola 6800 to enable compatibility with earlier Tektronix software. It included 32KB of RAM (expandable to 64KB), a DC300 quarter-inch cartridge tape drive, and a built-in GPIB interface for instrument control. Read more on the Tektronix 4052 system.

Tektronix offered many peripherals designed to work with the 4050-series computers including some examples pictured below listed in order:

• The Tektronix 4611 was a electrostatic printer that used one large scroll of paper and the toner was poured in.
• The Tektronix 4662 is an interactive digital plotter that cost $3,995 back in 1977. It uses a pen that is moved via precision stepper motors and fine steel cables, and it has an electrostatic pad that holds the paper down. The paper size could be set by moving the pen to a position and pressing down SET LOWER LEFT or SET UPPER RIGHT until you hear a beep once. Pressing down the CALL button until you hear a beep twice causes the printer to draw a self-test picture. The joystick allows the pen to be moved around wherever you wanted. This plotter communicates with a computer, especially the 4050-series graphics systems via a GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) connection. Inside the plotter is an embedded 6800 computer system that provides unique capabilities for the plotter such as built in character fonts in memory. The computer only had to send simple ASCII information to the plotter and off it goes.
• The 4907 Option 31 was one of the two 4907 eight-inch floppy disk drive units. The model 4907 refers to a single drive just as large as the dual drive but with the remaining space reserved for the disk controller that communicates to the computer via a GPIB connection. Unfortunately I did not save the main single disk drive with the controller so the dual drive is a massive paperweight that I ended up giving away. The numbers on the disk drives (0 and 1) indicates the device number that would be used for selection on the computer.
• The 4952 joystick originally cost $560. A POINTER statement is used to activate the pointer on the computer, and the joystick would move it around. If any key was pressed, the POINTER statement would end, the X,Y values would be stored, and the key pressed would also be stored.