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VR14 and VC8E Information

The VR14 is a X/Y display monitor which was normally used with the VC8-E CRT Display Controller, also called the point plotting display. This generated the display picture by moving the display to a particular point, and drawing a dot then moving to the next point.  More information

VR14 Specifications
Viewable Area 6.75 x 9 inches
Brightness >= 30 foot Lamberts
Dot Size .02 inches
Settling time full screen  18 microseconds to ± 1 spot diameter
Settling time for .1 inch change  1 microseconds to ± .5 spot diameter
Linear slew rate >= .4 inches per microsecond
Jitter ± 1/2 spot diameter
Repeatability ± 1 spot diameter
Gain change ±  .3% per ± 1% change in line voltage
Linearity <= 1% best fit straight line
Operating Environment 0 to 50 C (122 F)   10% to 90% Humidity
Power <= 500 watts
Size  10.5x19x17 inches
Weight 75 lbs
Cost VR14 $3240 and $100 installation from DEC in 1974
  $19 per month maintenance
VC8E controller $1185 and $100 installation
  $11 per month maintenace

Documents related to VR14 and VC8E

The following picture links also have descriptions of what is shown in the pictures.

Thumbnail Picture Selector

Current size med. Select picture size for links below   Small  Medium  Large

Front VR14 ( 40K)  Top With Shield (130K)  Back ( 73K)  Back Top ( 71K)
Top Inside ( 71K)  Top Inside Left ( 61K)  Top Inside Right ( 63K)
Outer Bottom ( 74K)  Inner Bottom ( 45K)
Backplane Top ( 81K)  Backplane Empty ( 87K)
Deflection Heat Sink ( 69K)  Power Heat Sink Front ( 79K)  Power Heat Sink Side ( 90K)
Front Disassembled Fan ( 62K)  Back Disassembled Fan ( 46K)
G8360 Regulator Front ( 86K)  G8360 Back ( 91K)
G840C Light Pen ( 61K)  W684 Intensity Amp ( 58K)  A225 Deflection Amp ( 82K)  Back of Boards (130K)

Videos of operation of VR14/VC8E. How to view For the videos you may need to downloaded them to your machine and run if they try to play while downloading. If not you will get pauses since the bit rate is higher than the modem speed.

Closeup of text on display( 66K) With the program generating it this text flickers due to being refreshed too slow. You can see that the intensity is not uniform in the picture. With the code made more efficient at the expense of using more memory this amount of text can be displayed without flicker. The picture is less clear than the actual display.

Video of kaleidoscope program (473K) another larger video (658K) The real display looks better, the low frame rate and the compression cause smearing and other artifacts. It does give a good sense of what it looks like.
Video of spacewar program (540K) The smearing on this one is mostly the long persistence of the CRT phosphors.
Sound of VR14 as realmovie (no video)( 28K) The sound level is louder than modern PC's but less than a microwave.

Sound of VR14 as wav file (388K)
Sound of VR14 as mp3 file ( 47K)



Feel free to contact me, David Gesswein djg@pdp8online.com with any questions, comments on the web site, or if you have related equipment, documentation, software etc. you are willing to part with.  I am interested in anything PDP-8 related, computers, peripherals used with them, DEC or third party, or documentation. 

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