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World’s first desktop PC randomly discovered during house clearance (www.pcgamesn.com)
submitted 8 months ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[-] prenatal_confusion@lemmy.one 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

That does sound rather ominous. The world's first in something should have a lot of information on it on the intertubes. It's old, it's nice,but the first?

It looks like a flat screen and not like crt, unless it is using some lights and a mask to display fixed characters.

Rather compact

Edit: first desktop computer featuring a single chip as a CPU

https://www.thebyteattic.com/p/q1.html?m=1

[-] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 41 points 8 months ago

That's not a graphic display. This is what it looks like in operation:

It's basically a dot-matrix, apparently using some form of plasma? From a closer look at the grid

I think it might be like a Nixie matrix like this one:

But older, less refined.

[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 months ago

That red dot display reminds me of something I saw in the late 70s but can't recall what. Was it commonly used on other devices?

[-] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

While I was looking for information about the display I found a lot of references to similar ones used in pinball machines

so maybe that?

Today they've mostly been replaced by LED panels.

[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 months ago

That is probably it. Thanks

[-] eyes@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

Looking at it, I think it might be an one of those old mono LCD displays? The video makes it look like it's a bunch of small individual ones rather than a large continuous display.

[-] roadkill@kbin.social 18 points 8 months ago

Holy shit... it's a large dot matrix plasma display. Haven't seen one of those in ages.

https://hackaday.io/project/179986-plasma-display-mc6205

That project has pictures that show you how they looked/worked.

[-] RollForInitiative@feddit.de 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I wonder if there is a video or anything somewhere showing one of these in use? Or in general more information, sounds like an interesting piece of history.

Searching for Q1 microchip computer or Q1 personal computer etc. didn't yield anything.

Edit: Found one directly on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZCW9paOjs, and another video which looks to contain some more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB3V_Q9wQ-M

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 8 months ago

I wanted to know what OS powered them. Probably a custom one by the manufacturer? Which I can imagine I could find with a bit of web searching but I'm too lazy for that.

[-] UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

I did the research and it's a bit interesting. It was known was GMOS (General Motors Operating System) made for IBM devices. Yes, THE General Motors that makes cars like Buicks.

I'm oversimplifying, but if DOS was Windows Command line, GMOS would be like a Linux equivalent. It's all input/output and maybe executing a very specific program like a calculator.

[-] nottelling@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Not really. If DOS was Windows command line, this would be more like executing a series of jobs from the bootloader and waiting for output or errors to appear on the terminal or printer.

The only thing something like GMOS would have controlled is hardware resources and I/O. The "very specific program like a calculator" is accurate, but is loaded into memory via tape or punch cards or the like by the operator at runtime, alongside whatever other software was needed for the job batch.

[-] alessandro@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 months ago

The default question wasn't made, so I'll make it:

"but it does run Doom?"

[-] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

that looks like a cyberdeck

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

I bet I could get Tetris Attack on that thing.

this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
232 points (99.2% liked)

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