Four car Auto Racing prototype??

[decle]

Hey all,

 

I was watching a short visual history of DEC on YouTube (as you do), when this Ken Burns'ified image caught my eye:

 

This looks to be a four car version of Auto Racing being displayed on a DEC PDP-11   The image can be found at 1:27 of this video.  Anyone know anything about this, or seen this image elsewhere?  Was this something Larry Zwick worked on?  A Google reverse image search doesn't seem to come up with much.

[mr_me]

You think that's the setup at APh? Maybe WJI knows.

 

In Auto Racing each car is made up of multiple sprites. In this image it looks like the sprites for one of the cars are out of sync.

Edited June 15 by mr_me

[+cmadruga]

Fujinet killer app! 🙂

 

[+Lathe26]

Wow!  That is a "blink and you miss it" moment in that video.  Decle, you have eagle eyes for catching that.

[decle]

8 hours ago, Lathe26 said:

Wow!  That is a "blink and you miss it" moment in that video.  Decle, you have eagle eyes for catching that.

Hmmm...   Enhance 224 to 176... Stop.

 

Track 45 right... Stop.

 

Pull back... Wait a minute.  Enhance 57 to 19... Track 45 left... Stop.

 

I think what we have here is a Tektronix 650A-1 NTSC+RGB monitor that's owned by New York Institute of Technology...

17 hours ago, mr_me said:

You think that's the setup at APh?

 

Maybe, but perhaps it's more likely to be something done by the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, possibly as part of the Super-STIC work that @BSRSteve told us about:

 

EDIT: If this is correct, and the Super-STIC was emulated on a PDP-11 graphics workstation, rather than using real hardware, it could explain why the video seems to violate the STIC two-color rule that is shown on the still frames before most of the clips.

Edited June 16 by decle

[+Lathe26]

This is a tangential to the four car Auto Racing, but I just spotted a familiar figure in the upper left of this video.  Watch the pixel display behind Adrian's head for 10-15 seconds.

 

 

[+Lathe26]

5 hours ago, decle said:

Maybe, but perhaps it's more likely to be something done by the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, possibly as part of the Super-STIC work that @BSRSteve told us about:

 

EDIT: If this is correct, and the Super-STIC was emulated on a PDP-11 graphics workstation, rather than using real hardware, it could explain why the video seems to violate the STIC two-color rule that is shown on the still frames before most of the clips.

Good catch on the Tektronix monitor.  I noticed those burry words but assumed they were unreadable and didn't try.

 

As for the Super-STIC, I don't see any violations of the Two Sith... err, Two Color Rule.  Maybe I am missing it.

 

However, while the background of the image looks quite close to the released Auto Racing, it doesn't quite match.

 

For example, while the building looks like it it from the release version, the bushes and water are close but not the right shape:

The DEC video also also doesn't match the Super-STIC test video's background.  The roads, bushes, lakes, buildings, and text font look wildly different from the DEC video's (screenshot from paused YouTube app):

 

Also, the pattern of the water does not match anything from the final map:

 

The NYIT connection does given credence to the Super-STIC theory.  However, the close-but-not-quite-released Auto Racing graphics make me think this was a pre-release version showing earlier graphics and 2 or 3 computer AI players OR was NYIT work on creating Auto Racing 2: Too Fast Too Furious with new features (car AI?  ECS support?).

 

Tidbit: the video snippet is shown in the 1970 section, before the 1976 section of the DEC video, though this seems incorrect placement by the video's editor.  It was probably just them showing the same model of PDP-11 shown in the previous frames.

[+Lathe26]

After a night's sleep, I realized there is an additional way that the DEC video is of the Super-STIC.  The DEC video could be early real work on the Super-STIC while the Test Video could be a purely software mock-up to show what could be possible from a theoretical Super-STIC's various features.  Such mock-up are used early in development processes to determine whether something is actually worth developing (or would be a wasted money pit).  I have no idea if this is the cause.  I am just wildly speculating here.

[+DZ-Jay]

14 minutes ago, Lathe26 said:

After a night's sleep, I realized there is an additional way that the DEC video is of the Super-STIC.  The DEC video could be early real work on the Super-STIC while the Test Video could be a purely software mock-up to show what could be possible from a theoretical Super-STIC's various features.  Such mock-up are used early in development processes to determine whether something is actually worth developing (or would be a wasted money pit).  I have no idea if this is the cause.  I am just wildly speculating here.

Hehehe, I think that is what @decle said in the other thread.