Bill in 1971 at the CDC 1604 main console

A mag tape, all imagery was stored on these dainty devices, teletype at right

The computer images made in 1970-1972 were done on large mainframe hardware. Pictured here is a room-sized behemoth called a CDC 1604 made by Control Data Corporation. It was designed as the ballistics computer for the ICBMs on Polaris nuclear submarines. One of them, complete with ex-Navy service technician, made it into the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. It was used there for a variety of computer modelling, for which I was employed as a research programmer while an undergraduate. I "arranged" to use surplus computer time in the late night hours to do my artwork. This was one of the first computer graphics systems capable of creating realistic 3D imagery of solid objects with shadows, however, I usually used it to create other types of imagery. Over the next few years with the advent of minicomputers the systems I used migrated down from room-sized to merely refrigerator or desk-sized. My current desktop PC is signficantly more powerful than the CDC 1604.

The console did not use a CRT display, instead a Teletype (seen at the right of the photo above right) served as the human interface. This was essentially a computer-controlled mechanical typewriter. Your typed input went into the beast and it spit back typed responses. Images were made on a novel for the time CRT display, custom built at the laboratory. Designed primarily for photography, not direct viewing, it had 35mm and Polaroid backs and a Mitchell animation camera which could be controlled by the computer. Monochrome of course. I did the first color work on the system by shooting 16mm color separations on black and white stock, merging them in optical printing.