[Prof. Marvin Minsky] is a very well-known figure in the field of computing, having co-founded the MIT AI lab, published extensively on AI and computational intelligence, and, let’s not forget, inventing the confocal microscope and, of course, the useless machine. But did you know he also was a co-developer of the first Logo “turtle,” and developed a computer intended to run Logo applications in an educational environment? After dredging some PDP-10 tapes owned by the MIT Media Lab, the original schematics for his machine, the Turtle Terminal TT2500 (a reference to the target price of $2500, in 1970 terms), are now available for you to examine.
The machine itself was created in an interesting way; by affixing discrete socketed TTL chips to a large panel, some three hundred or so, the interconnect was performed automatically using a computer-controlled wiring machine that read the design from magnetic tape. The 2500 used 16-bit user-definable instructions read from a tiny 4k control store. Instruction microcode was read from a 1k microcode store backed up with 64k of RAM. Unusually, it sported a dual display configuration, with one text display and a second vector display for rendering real-time graphics. The machine was intended to run the Logo programming language developed by [Seymour Papert] and others, but this was impossible due to its tiny control store. Instead, it became a display terminal for a connected computer with sufficient resources. You can read more about this fascinating period of time in AI, the life of [Minsky], and others in this New Yorker article.
[Lars Brinkhoff] has created a simulation of the TT2500 running atop a PDP11/45 emulator, a demo of which can be seen below. What a fun story! We covered the passing of the great man back in 2016, which is well worth another read, we reckon. If you want to relive the useless machine, we’ve seen them ranging from the simple to the complex.
Thanks to [Stephen ] for the tip!
Logo’s a hugely underrated language — underneath the turtle graphics it’s basically a stealth Lisp. It was done a huge disservice by all the 8-bit microcomputer ports that weren’t really powerful enough to write non-trivial programs on. For an introductory programming language, you could still do a great deal worse.
Kid Stuff on Commodore PET. I started learning that along with BASIC when I was only 6 at elementary school. I was able to do complex design but then I started having problem making a more complex design because PET had only 4K RAM, some used up by Kid Stuff program and the rest became full.
Turtle Graphics for C64 were many times better and had more RAM for me to work with, Unfortunately LOGO program were not catching on and fading away in mid 80s and no computer supported it when I got to middle school.
What school did you go to which taught programming in elementary school?
I learned logo on appleII and atari800 by 1983 in elementary school. 3rd grade… I’m in the US. But it was part of the national curriculum in the UK for a long time.
Yeah, like Tim, I’d like to know which elementary school and when offered programming in that era.
Minsky’s accomplishments are cool and all, but he wasn’t exactly 100% a cool dude.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed
This was part of what RMS got in trouble for back in 2019.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman-resigns-mit-free-software-foundation-epstein
Don’t forget Seymour Papert. ………..I was working for Honeywell I.S. in that time..and taking courses at MIT… it was a fascinating time …..as now with new discoveries….. Hurry 4 technology and I.S.