question about old real-time computer graphics used for militaryflight simulators

Here we have a demo of a flight simulator system from Evans &
Sutherland circa 1981. The CT-5.

It was used in various flight simulators for helicopters and F-16:

http://design.osu.edu/carlson/histor...s-military.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/2r5asus.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e7_GiCc-HA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06mbwNg1Vw4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-qb_jHRhA



For those that understand the history of real-time computer graphics,
which companies like Evans & Sutherland and General Electric
Aerospace (later rolled into Martin Marietta / Lockheed Martin)
invented in the late 1960s & 1970s and refined in the 1980s and early
1990s, was this one, the CT-5, the most advanced, highest-end, in
terms of the complexity and quality of the graphics it could generate,
for its time ?

These graphics, being real-time interactive @ 60fps, not some pre-
rendered CGI movie, seemed more advanced than anything else of the
time (early 1980s).
was it?

I know, or believe, that texture-mapping was invented in the 1980s, I
think by General Electric Aerospace / Martin Marietta, however at the
time, 1981, only flat-shading combined with gouraud-shading was
available. It looks amazing in the video and screenshots I've
provided.

Also, looking at some of the flat-shaded polygon arcade games from
NAMCO and SEGA of the early 1990s, such as Virtua Racing, Virtua
Fighter, Cyber Sled,
Air Combat, generated by their System 21 and MODEL 1 arcade boards
respectively, which were state of the art for video games, far ahead
of what personal computers and game consoles could do, at the time,
and even sharper than the later PlayStation1 graphics of 1994 /
1995... The older 1981 E&S simulator seems to have, yet even better
graphics capabilities than the flat-shaded polygon arcade games of
10-12 years later.

Does anyone have any specific knowledge of Evans & Sutherland CT-5
simulator system, the processing hardware behind it ?

"parallax-scroll" wrote in message
...
Here we have a demo of a flight simulator system from Evans &
Sutherland circa 1981. The CT-5.

It was used in various flight simulators for helicopters and F-16:

Did you dig a bit deeper on that first link?
http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/lesson13.html

The page doesn't actually say much about the graphics hardware (System
architecture? Fill rate? How much video RAM?) We know from the Youtube video
it drew polygons. There is a good chance the CT5 graphics hardware had many
similarities with subsequent SGI machines. Hell, technology-wise, the first
3dfx Voodoo cards didn't really introduce anything unprecedented. 3dfx timed
the product correctly: perpetual die shrinks made two texture units and 4 MB
of RAM affordable to the common user. To put things in perspective, the CT5
simulator sold for $20 million in 1980s dollars. The F-16C/D aircraft sold
for $19 million in 1998 dollars. Military funding allowed for many things
that were otherwise commercially infeasible.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Augustus" wrote in message
news:Ffidm.37358$Db2.35888@edtnps83...

"parallax-scroll" wrote in message
...
Here we have a demo of a flight simulator system from Evans &
Sutherland circa 1981. The CT-5.

It was used in various flight simulators for helicopters and F-16:

Did you dig a bit deeper on that first link?
http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/lesson13.html

I am putting on my 'way back' hat and remembering things that I was told
about 18 years ago, so forgive me if I am a little loose with the details.
A fellow technician who worked with me had a wife who worked for E&S. Her
job was to be 'checked out' on the simulator by the engineers who built it.
She was responsible to oversee the disassembly of the equipment and crating
for shipping. She, along with the equipment, would be shipped to the
destination and oversee the assembly of the simulator on site. Once it was
certified as specified, she came back home for the next assignment. (She
was a beautiful woman, smart, and a wonderful personality - fun to be
around. Which is why she fell into such fun jobs all the time. She and my
friend spent a year in Germany assembling a simulator for Mercedes for one
assignment.)

She told me that they used PDP-11's. Lots of them. One for running the
program, one for polygon creation, fills, textures, control input. Then the
bunch where sent to an aggregator, where everything was mixed together.
Form their they were sent to processors for video out, sound out, hydraulics
out, instrumentation out. A few racks, power supplies, and lots of cables.

The PDP-11's (Manufacturer?) were considered the mainstay computer for many
businesses at the time. They were middle ground processing units, between
high-end IBM's and low-end desk-tops. (IBM's - weird.) Allot of Industrial
applications used PDP-11's. Their weren't that many choices to be had back
then.

William


"First of One" wrote in message
...
The page doesn't actually say much about the graphics hardware (System
architecture? Fill rate? How much video RAM?) We know from the Youtube
video it drew polygons. There is a good chance the CT5 graphics hardware
had many similarities with subsequent SGI machines. Hell, technology-wise,
the first 3dfx Voodoo cards didn't really introduce anything
unprecedented. 3dfx timed the product correctly: perpetual die shrinks
made two texture units and 4 MB of RAM affordable to the common user. To
put things in perspective, the CT5 simulator sold for $20 million in 1980s
dollars. The F-16C/D aircraft sold for $19 million in 1998 dollars.
Military funding allowed for many things that were otherwise commercially
infeasible.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Augustus" wrote in message
news:Ffidm.37358$Db2.35888@edtnps83...

"parallax-scroll" wrote in message
...
Here we have a demo of a flight simulator system from Evans &
Sutherland circa 1981. The CT-5.

It was used in various flight simulators for helicopters and F-16:

Did you dig a bit deeper on that first link?
http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/lesson13.html

The PDP-11 was made by Digital
Equipment Corp. (DEC) -- along
with the later VAX systems, it
was considered a minicomputer,
i.e. smaller and less powerful
than a mainframe but much more
powerful than the desktop
microcomputers of its time and
capable of multitasking.


"William" wrote:

I am putting on my 'way back' hat and remembering things that I was told
about 18 years ago, so forgive me if I am a little loose with the details.
A fellow technician who worked with me had a wife who worked for E&S. Her
job was to be 'checked out' on the simulator by the engineers who built it.
She was responsible to oversee the disassembly of the equipment and crating
for shipping. She, along with the equipment, would be shipped to the
destination and oversee the assembly of the simulator on site. Once it was
certified as specified, she came back home for the next assignment. (She
was a beautiful woman, smart, and a wonderful personality - fun to be
around. Which is why she fell into such fun jobs all the time. She and my
friend spent a year in Germany assembling a simulator for Mercedes for one
assignment.)

She told me that they used PDP-11's. Lots of them. One for running the
program, one for polygon creation, fills, textures, control input. Then the
bunch where sent to an aggregator, where everything was mixed together.
Form their they were sent to processors for video out, sound out, hydraulics
out, instrumentation out. A few racks, power supplies, and lots of cables.

The PDP-11's (Manufacturer?) were considered the mainstay computer for many
businesses at the time. They were middle ground processing units, between
high-end IBM's and low-end desk-tops. (IBM's - weird.) Allot of Industrial
applications used PDP-11's. Their weren't that many choices to be had back
then.

William


"First of One" wrote in message
m...
The page doesn't actually say much about the graphics hardware (System
architecture? Fill rate? How much video RAM?) We know from the Youtube
video it drew polygons. There is a good chance the CT5 graphics hardware
had many similarities with subsequent SGI machines. Hell, technology-wise,
the first 3dfx Voodoo cards didn't really introduce anything
unprecedented. 3dfx timed the product correctly: perpetual die shrinks
made two texture units and 4 MB of RAM affordable to the common user. To
put things in perspective, the CT5 simulator sold for $20 million in 1980s
dollars. The F-16C/D aircraft sold for $19 million in 1998 dollars.
Military funding allowed for many things that were otherwise commercially
infeasible.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Augustus" wrote in message
news:Ffidm.37358$Db2.35888@edtnps83...

"parallax-scroll" wrote in message
...
Here we have a demo of a flight simulator system from Evans &
Sutherland circa 1981. The CT-5.

It was used in various flight simulators for helicopters and F-16:

Did you dig a bit deeper on that first link?
http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/lesson13.html

"William" wrote in message
acquisition...
I am putting on my 'way back' hat and remembering things that I was told
about 18 years ago, so forgive me if I am a little loose with the details.

snip


That 18 years ago should have been 28 years ago. God - I am feeling old
right now. I think I will go lay down and watch a movie on one of my VHS
tapes. (Copied from a 3/4" master).

Has anyone here ever tried to copy a VHS tape recorded in SLP to a DVD? The
noise doesn't compress so well. The movies are long in digital memory
requirements. I've been trying to find newer copies in DVD, and am having
trouble.

A copy of a copy of a copy.


William

Correct! We had one running out production equipment around 1987-88? I
remember that DEC actually sent out their "environmental people" to
have us install an isolation transformer to protect it from surges and
spikes, big $$$!


On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:45:54 -0400, Bruce Morgen wrote:
The PDP-11 was made by Digital
Equipment Corp. (DEC) -- along
with the later VAX systems, it
was considered a minicomputer,
i.e. smaller and less powerful
than a mainframe but much more
powerful than the desktop
microcomputers of its time and
capable of multitasking.

DEC was a money factory
until faster micros made
their technology obsolete
-- they got away with it
because, as pricey as
their stuff was, it was
much more economical than
even any "entry-level"
mainframe solution.


GaryR wrote:

Correct! We had one running out production equipment around 1987-88? I
remember that DEC actually sent out their "environmental people" to
have us install an isolation transformer to protect it from surges and
spikes, big $$$!


On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:45:54 -0400, Bruce Morgen wrote:
The PDP-11 was made by Digital
Equipment Corp. (DEC) -- along
with the later VAX systems, it
was considered a minicomputer,
i.e. smaller and less powerful
than a mainframe but much more
powerful than the desktop
microcomputers of its time and
capable of multitasking.

In article , "William" wrote:

"William" wrote in message
nacquisition...
I am putting on my 'way back' hat and remembering things that I was told
about 18 years ago, so forgive me if I am a little loose with the details.

snip


That 18 years ago should have been 28 years ago. God - I am feeling old
right now. I think I will go lay down and watch a movie on one of my VHS
tapes. (Copied from a 3/4" master).

Has anyone here ever tried to copy a VHS tape recorded in SLP to a DVD? The
noise doesn't compress so well. The movies are long in digital memory
requirements. I've been trying to find newer copies in DVD, and am having
trouble.

A copy of a copy of a copy.


William


Garbage in, Garbage out.

I usually run my VHS videos thru my Hotronix AR71 TBC
( http://www.hotronics.com/ar71.html )

Then, if i need post processing i run the stablized video thru a Sima SCC-2
unit.