DEC Tubemate?!? (was Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?)

[Roger Ivie]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 06:25:48PM -0800, Roger Ivie wrote:
>> I did once see a prototype for something called a "Tubemate". Imagine
>> the DECmate III/MicroVAX 2000 box with a small wide-format CRT instead
>> of the front panel; something that could do, say, 80x12 instead of
>> 80x24. This was allegedly a DECmate variant, however, rather than a VAX.
>
> Hmm... I'm having problems envisioning it... I don't think of the
> DECmate or the uVAX2K as having a "front panel".  Do you mean that there
> was a wee CRT behind the flap, in the 5.25"-wide space where the drives
> go?  The VT50 was 80x12, so it's not like there wouldn't be any software
> that expected to see such a screen, but most apps, I'd think, would want
> the "full" 24 lines.

I mean that it had a tube in place of the front of the box. There were
no drives poking out the front. The tube took up the whole front of the
box:

     +------------------------------------+
     |+----------------------------------+|
     ||                                  ||
     ||  wide, short tube                ||
     ||                                  ||
     |+----------------------------------+|
     +------------------------------------+

Thinking about it, it might have been just a monitor intended to stack
on top of the DECmate III; that wouldn't need drives or much inside
besides the power supply and the tube.
-- 
roger ivie
rivie at ridgenet.net