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Hello, stranger. I’m glad you decided to join me on this impromptu tour of a somewhat forgotten era of computing: the time when Screens Were Expensive – and so computers had no choice but to use smaller screens, small screens, and even ridiculously tiny screens. Shall we…?
In the early 1980s, if you couldn’t afford a (ridiculously expensive) Xerox 860 word processor will a “full page” display, you could save some money by buying a Xerox 850, with a “half page” display. (The 850 was still ridiculously expensive.)pic.twitter.com/twKBOeENab
Magnavox Plasma display from 1978! Great name, really impressive, and probably very expensive… and yet still with a very thick bezel taking half of the responsibility of making it look awesome.pic.twitter.com/j0mvacI8y0
IBM 2260 was an earlier Master Of Bezels. I believe you could buy a more expensive model with More Screen, or a cheaper one with fewer lines… but the same form factor (just more plastic).pic.twitter.com/KMvxVxESle
This is a Hell Digiset typesetting machine. The landscape screen looks impressive only without the keyboard – otherwise you realize this is not today’s typical screen made wider, but rather a normal screen made *shorter*.pic.twitter.com/vstOantmiD
The situation was similar in the case of this “human-engineered” HP 250 – this terminal might not have had that many characters, but at least had so much *character*!pic.twitter.com/E1z2bBH1Q3
Speaking of style, check out this guy next to an IBM terminal probably around the same time (1970s). Once again, you could buy a more expensive screen, or a smaller one in a sea of black.pic.twitter.com/f2ZHuUCLtG
IBM was pretty good at screen trickery. IBM 3742 Dual Data Station was a data entry terminal meant for two people, and with two keyboards, but only a single screen. The screen was split into two “virtual screens” with a special prism. (A single-screen 3741 was also available.)pic.twitter.com/CJ4DUkA0Ho
IBM 5252 split a slightly bigger screen in a slightly different way.pic.twitter.com/pjb4fpdTyR
I don’t know much about this Inforex terminal, but I know that even on a screen so small, an error that says only ERROR is not an excuse.pic.twitter.com/KHcMKPChoG
Mohawk Data Sciences System 2400 (1973) had a very pretty green screen and if that keyboard is permanently slanted, I am in love.pic.twitter.com/vNxWKbr9ov
MicroOffice RoadRunner – “the five-pound computer aimed at the mobile professional” from 1983. Its display was 80 characters, but only 8 lines. (Love the cartridge indentations below the display.)pic.twitter.com/fg98h2itrj
VYDEC 2000 word processor! A glorious 12-line display (*)! (*) fine print: “4 lines of status and command areas”pic.twitter.com/DGEiBCnh6T
TI Insight Series 10 was introduced in 1981. It had 40×24 characters, on a 5½" “swivel” CRT screen.pic.twitter.com/KZsmPGuadL
The IBM 1015 Inquiry Display terminal was relatively similar spec-wise – a 5½" display of 40×30 characters – but much, much older. The screen still looked like a radar tube, betraying its origins. “Erasure time is 6 seconds.” (Be still, my heart.)pic.twitter.com/au8lX99xrb
Up until a point, there were so few characters in displays, that you could just brag about the number. This red Burroughs “SELF-SCAN” display is a “256-character display” (today, we would call it 32×8 instead).pic.twitter.com/7zyT6natx8
(At some point many years later, I saw a mention of a 1920-character display. I bet you can figure out what common text resolution this meant.)
Or this Owens-Illinois terminal (on the right) made things even more complicated. It was advertised as a “64×256 lines at 33.3 lines per inch” – but it’s 40×6 characters, it seems.pic.twitter.com/f6d2LBJkjV
I feel the Osborne 1, Commodore SX 64, and IBM 5100 – all early portable machines with 5-inch displays – are relatively well-known, but should be included anyway.pic.twitter.com/IVWUzioFsJ
A budget mid-1970s IMSAI computer had all the components you’d recognize from early microcomputers… but in very, very different proportions. As far as I understand, this screen could still display 40×24, or even 80×24 characters? (They’d just be incredibly tiny.)pic.twitter.com/JLjGCxI2sq
Berthold Fototype TPE 6001 had a gorgeous screen (*) and kind of an amazing keyboard. Sometimes the most wonderful computers were hidden in specialized areas. Here: phototypesetting. (*) at least on the outside, of coursepic.twitter.com/KKsu86wixz
Up to 10 lines! Up to 198 characters! The smallest Bunker Ramo financial terminals were so small QWERTY just walked away from the whole deal.pic.twitter.com/WMAZPoSAOd
(Although some more fancy ones came with two screens for some reason?)pic.twitter.com/0CdkgPib3X
This SCM Cogito 240 calculator had a 64-digit display. There were many more like it, but this one had – once more – a beautiful big bezel tricking you into seeing a much bigger display.pic.twitter.com/rxHN65nfQk
Some computers couldn’t decide whether they want to pretend the screen is bigger, or just own the small size. Either way, this Culler-Fried System from 1960s had a fantastic keyboard-to-screen ratio.pic.twitter.com/mVtPvhKvBu
Digisplay, a 1972 “flat-screen image sandwich” had 512 *tiny* characters.pic.twitter.com/Qb7kmUQCqD
On the other hand – IBM 4700 financial system had a 5" display, but also a courtesy to come with a smaller keyboard to match it.pic.twitter.com/iEQkENKC7A
We’re getting smaller and smaller still. Philips PX1000/Text Lite PX1200 were portable terminals with just one line of text, and of course it makes sense! They’re so thin and tiny.pic.twitter.com/RYFrHkK7iP
But if there’s one lesson we already learned in tech is that everything comes back: once-solved problems reappear as a headache for the next generation.
And so, a few decades earlier, you could buy a really expensive CompuWriter typesetting machine – but that big space in front was for paper you were typing *from*. The display was a tiny sliver of one line, off to the side.pic.twitter.com/yuk6r0Rdsl
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