Electronics-based art installations are often fleeting and specific things that only a select few people who are in the right place or time get to experience before they are lost to the ravages of ‘progress.’ So it’s wonderful to find a dedicated son who has recreated his father’s 1973 art installation, showing it to the world in a miniature form. The network-iv-rebooted project is a recreation of an installation once housed within a departure lounge in terminal C of Seattle-Tacoma airport.
The original unit comprises an array of 1024 GE R6A neon lamps, controlled from a Data General Nova 1210 minicomputer. A bank of three analog synthesizers also drove into no fewer than 32 resonators. An 8×8 array of input switches was the only user-facing input. The switches were mounted to a floor-standing pedestal facing the display.
For the re-creation, the neon lamps were replaced with 16×16 WS2811 LED modules, driven via a Teensy 4.0 using the OctoWS2811 library. The display Teensy is controlled from a Raspberry Pi 4, hooked up as a virtual serial device over USB. A second Teensy (you can’t have too many Teensies!) is responsible for scanning a miniature 8×8 push button array as well as running a simulation of the original sound synthesis setup. Audio is pushed out of the Teensy using a PT8211 I2S audio DAC, before driving a final audio power amp.
Attempting to reproduce accurately how the original code worked would be tricky, if downright impossible, but fear not, as the network-iv-rebooted is running the original code. Since the artist was astute enough to keep not only the engineering drawings and schematics, but also the original paper tape of the Nova 1210 program, it could be successfully run using the SIMH Nova emulator. The simulator needed to be modified to support the optional ‘device 76’ GPIO device added to the Nova 1210 for handling the extra connectivity. This was a small price to pay compared to the alternative. That said, most of the heavy lifting on the I/O side is performed by the pair of Teensies, with modern coding methods making life a lot easier.
Mechanics and code for the reproduction are being collected on this GitHub repo for those interested in building a clone. The opus20 page has a few photos and details of the original installation, but many more pieces can be found on the sculptures page, complete with a neat video tour, which we also include below. Check out those circuit sculptures! Groovy!
We’ve recently featured some retro electronic art, drooled over some circuit sculptures, and swooned at some PCB art. We just can’t get enough!
A short video about James Seawright’s other pieces:
I think usagi electric is working on bringing up exactly one of those NOVA minicomputers.
I’ve been watching Tech Tangents on Youtube fiddle with a Data General microNova… lots of fun..
“A 1973 Art Installation” not “An 1973 Art Installation”.
Thanc jou vor tis konstructife comend, Im sjure te wort iz novv an beter plaace.
Juzt emagine iv tis eror waz nod fiksed. Buy thu weigh, jou vorgot too mentjon the fect thad te ekstra capitol az uset in te wort “Art” end te wort “Installation” doez nod add too the senteze ant therevore kood bee remofed kompletelee. Than agian… itz art… it sjoet bee stranche, sjoet nod id.
Thank you for your own constructive comment. The effort in developing a phonetically understandable but counter to convention encoding has had the desired effect on local entropy. Good job.
Sure, Jan.
At first I read that headline as rebooting an art installation on a 1973 (Chevy) Nova.
That’s the only Nova I was aware of from that time. Many know that “no va” in Spanish means it doesn’t go. I bet this computer didn’t sell well in Spanish speaking countries either.
Just like how no English speaker wants to see a therapist because why would they want to go to the rapist?
And the Chevy Nova sold fine in Spanish speaking countries.
That display is showing Conway’s “Game of Life”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life
I programmed it on a CDC CYBER and displayed on a 24×80 DEC VT-05 when I was in grad school.
Checking out the other sculptures, I find Passing Reflections, which I distinctly remember seeing at Logan Airport. Not sure if it’s still in Terminal C, but The Internet says it was still there in 2005. I’ll have to check next time I go there.
(and I used to work at DG, though post-NOVA 1210)
It’s nice to see legacy art recreated. One thing I didn’t follow was if the original was interactive allowing the public to use the switch panel. The second video of art was different…I guess the definition of art lies in the eye of the beholder. The music is somewhat reminiscent of “Krell” music (Forbidden Planet).
https://www.seawright.net/sculpture/opus20
Here are some pictures I found of the original. It did have a control panel.
Reminds me of… and it oh does use Conway’s GoL algo. 1024 (64×16) of 3W neon lamps!
The music is creepy, although in the 1970’s many movies were FUD about super computers going crazy – see Colossus: The Forbin Project {1970}.
I remember seeing that display at Sea-Tac in early 1976, on a layover on my way to Alaska for a fun-filled year at a remote RADAR station. I saw it several more times over the years, the last couple of which it wasn’t working. And then it was gone.
Did anyone ever use neon indicators as a form of RAM? You could have a holding voltage, and a higher write voltage, current sensors could read indicator states? The negative resistive curve makes them perfect for a memory of sorts. Pretty too.
Maybe not directly as memory, but the Burroughs Self-Scan series of plasma displays used this characteristic to implement a shift register. Each row of dots operated independently, shifting bits down the whole length of the display, and once all of the data had been read in, this was transferred to separate cells that were the visible portion of the display.
http://ferretronix.com/tech/nixie/pdf/ss_theory.pdf