The Tektronix 4010 series was a family of text-and-graphics computer terminals based on storage-tube technology created by Tektronix. Several members of the family were introduced during the 1970s, the best known being the 11-inch 4010 and 19-inch 4014, along with the less popular 25-inch 4016. They were widely used in the computer-aided design market in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The 4000 series were much less expensive than earlier graphics terminals, such as the IBM 2250, because no additional electronics were needed to maintain the display on the storage-tube screen; images drawn to the screen remained there until deliberately erased. This eliminated the need for computer memory to store the images, which was expensive in the 1970s. The display series remained popular until the introduction of inexpensive graphics workstations in the 1980s. These new graphics workstations used raster displays and dedicated screen buffers that became more affordable as solid-state memory chips became markedly cheaper.
History
The Tektronix direct-view bistable storage tube was first used in the Tektronix 564 oscilloscope in 1963, and was first used for non-oscilloscope applications in the 601 monitor in 1968. A number of graphics terminals based on this tube and others from the 600-series were developed, including the Advanced Remote Display Station from MIT's Project MAC, and the KV8I (later, KV8E) from Digital Equipment Corporation using the 11-inch diagonal 611. These displays consisted of just the CRT and related basic electronics; it was up to software on the host computer to produce a display by driving the CRT signals directly. Tektronix decided to enter the computer terminal market themselves, introducing the 4002 in 1969, and the updated 4002A in 1971. The latter sold for $9,400 (equivalent to $68,175 in 2025), and required a $150 host adaptor. These were similar to the earlier third-party terminals, essentially combining one of their storage tubes with the circuitry needed to decode instructions from the host and turn those into control inputs. However, the 4002 had the unique feature that only a portion of the screen was a storage tube, with a small section set aside for normal refresh-based drawing. This area was used for status messages and entering commands. As they did not include raster scan hardware or any form of memory, refreshing this area rapidly enough to reduce flicker was up to the host computer. Starting in 1972, the 4002 was first supplanted and then replaced by the 4010. A number of changes and simplifications allowed these to be far less expensive, initially released at $3,950 (equivalent to $28,648 in 2025) and another $290 for a host adaptor. Other models in the 4010 series included the 4012 which added lower case characters, and the 4013 with an APL character set. These were implemented using plug-in boards that could be added to the base-model 4010 as well. In the 1980s, a version using a built-in RS-232 port and a number of missing features was released as the 4006, which was small enough to fit on a desk, selling for $2,995 (equivalent to $11,703 in 2025).
The 4014 joined the line at $8,450 (equivalent to $55,164 in 2025), introducing a larger 19-inch screen as well as a more an ergonomic layout. It had a wide range of new features as well, which made it much more effective in many contexts and became especially common in computer-aided design (CAD) use. The upgraded features became so widely-used that the 4014 series is sometimes considered to be a separate line from the 4010, or alternatively the canonical model for the entire family. The 4015 was a 4014 with the APL character set card from the 4013. The 4016, introduced in 1979, was a version with a 25-inch screen and a somewhat different mechanical layout to provide room for the much larger tube. It was much more expensive, with the base model selling for $19,500 (equivalent to $76,196 in 2025). A wide variety of peripherals were available that worked on some or all of these models. The first line, introduced with the 4010, included the 4610 Hard Copy Unit, an early graphics printer. This used a system in the monitor to scan the display line-by-line, which sent signals to the printer where a one-line-tall CRT duplicated the image on thermal paper. Normally selling for $3,550, a $3,950 version allowed the printer to be shared among four terminals. The printer adaptor could be pre-installed in the 4010, making it the 4010-1, and it came pre-installed on both the 4012 and 4013 which do not appear to have used the -1 notation to indicate this. The 4631 was a version of the 4610 with a sheet feeder and higher speed. A properly equipped 4014 could also drive a pen plotter through an expansion card, including the GPIB-based 4662 Interactive Digital Plotter and 4663 C-sized version. Plotters offered color graphical output via colored pen selection, which could be embedded in the graphics data. For storage, the systems could write out the data stream of characters as they were received from the host, allowing them to be played back locally to recreate the display. Storage options included the 4911 punch tape, the 4912 using cassette tapes based on a Sykes TT120 mechanism, and later added the 4923 based on the 3M DC300 digital tape system. Other devices in the lineup included the 4901 and 4903 Interactive Graphic Unit, which drew crosshairs on the 4002 (this capability was built into the later models), and the 4951 Joystick. This hardware allowed the user to select any point on a display, and to input its coordinates to a computer, allowing support of a CAD system.
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