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…?
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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
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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
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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
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VYDEC 2000 word processor! A glorious 12-line display (*)! (*) fine print: “4 lines of status and command areas”pic.twitter.com/DGEiBCnh6T
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TI Insight Series 10 was introduced in 1981. It had 40×24 characters, on a 5½" “swivel” CRT screen.pic.twitter.com/KZsmPGuadL
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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
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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
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(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.)
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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(Although some more fancy ones came with two screens for some reason?)pic.twitter.com/0CdkgPib3X
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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
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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
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Digisplay, a 1972 “flat-screen image sandwich” had 512 *tiny* characters.pic.twitter.com/Qb7kmUQCqD
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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
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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
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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.
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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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Or, remember that Xerox 850/860 machine from that we started with? If you couldn’t afford even the half-page screen, there was another option: a little display of 16 green letters.pic.twitter.com/nhS5LrBwe6
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A Berthold typesetting machine came with a beautiful and unique keyboard – and in the periphery, a “screen” that felt more like a calculator display, with room for only *eight* last characters you typed.pic.twitter.com/hLy1ZSCxOz
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And if you’re thinking “at least the calculators are safe,” here is the abominable Royal Digital 3 with only *four* digits and a special key to scroll to the left or right.pic.twitter.com/MPj0pOijEr
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(I wrote about Royal Digital 3 in my newsletter last year. It not only has the worst display, but also a pretty awful “keyboard”: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/issues/the-worst-keyboard-ever-made-148939 …)
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But at last there *was* a display. Because we’re going to end one of the first computers ever, the otherwise glorious and memorable 1951’s UNIVAC, size of a room, its memory banks filled with mercury.pic.twitter.com/q8kHvTH2K4
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There it is, in the middle of its blinking console, surrounded by a white frame – a “display” of sorts, a screen of an era where cathode ray tubes in computers were used for… memory, rather than display. (Yes!)pic.twitter.com/O2XMaMkoXV
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It’s pretty simple. Each character UNIVAC can share with you is accompanied by a simple lightbulb that would shine at the right moment.
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