1968 IBM Computer Generated Movie - Video

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

I could swear I saw Permutations in 70 or 71. Even the music is familiar. I saw lots of interesting things the average kid didn't, because of the people I was spending most of my time with...connected to the university, and they were optimistic in a way the world could use now.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh wow, that's neat. Interesting how things have evolved.

[@smakfu1375]

You know you're old-school when you were part of the S/360 Demoscene.

[@yannisgk]

lol

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@LaPabst]

@@smakfu1375 Then came windows 3.1 screen savers. They all were kinda 'this'... Gave that monster 286 something to do while it slept.

[@TheAndreArtus]

This is the spiritual forefather of the demoscene.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Absolutely!!

[@thromboid]

I was thinking the same thing, especially after watching the Budbrain Megademo on my Amiga 500 last night.

[@jimbotron70]

Of CGI in general

[@PeBoVision]

Absolutely! Just add a greetz scroll.

[@Peter_S_]

The early days of computing were almost totally demoscene. It took a bit for the business applications to catch iup. This also held or holds true for most new computer designs.

[@pauleveritt3388]

A valuable piece of history. This has a lot of "movie magic" in it. This is a composite of many screens. The images were all black and white. Colors came from filters so this dictates that layers was used. The movie magic makes the film look way "cooler" than watching the screen would have been as this would be an electronic example of stop motion. Great bit of history. Great of example of how to use film and filters to create something interesting that would have been rather dull to watch. The motion has been speeded up significantly by the film maker. This reminded me of the TRS-80 program that I wrote to plot cardioids using the SET command in the graphics. It was 9 lines of code with the equation embedded in the code. It drew the X-Y axis and plotted the cardioid. This was in 1981. I was also a full time videographer for 10 years so I could see some of the movie magic. This bit about using filters for color tipped me off.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome! Do you still have your TRS-80 program listing?

[@mal2ksc]

I think this makes it more special, like the way the recording studio got leveraged as a whole new instrument in the 1970s. A couple decades later, this power would be in everyone's hands (in both cases).

[@Kohntarkosz]

I wondered about that, because there was some bits with the multiple images where the different screens weren't lined up quite right. He must not have had the camera locked down properly.

[@exidy-yt]

1968 on a multi-million dollar IBM mainframe.....isn't it astounding that only 10 years later a home PC (The Atari 800) would be nearly capable of this level of calculation and animation (the film was clearly sped up compared to the original calculations) in colour and with arguably better audio directly onto a home CRT screen? Great find, glad the algorithm fed me this video!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome. Glad you liked it!

[@williamallen7836]

Nearly?! Wish you were there in my youth to see the similar videos I made on my Atari 800XL, and later 1200XL. When I started doing it I was in the 5th grade on an 800XL setup I found at a GoodWill for $20. Never thought much of it, it was just for fun. I would stay up till 3AM working on the videos. The 1200XL I inherited from my older brother when he upgraded to an STfm. I thought I was working with serious computer equipment when I bought an Atari STe off a kid in the 8th grade. Who's punishment was to sell the entire setup (including all software) after using it to get in trouble. Never learned what he did though. Lol I had moved on to learning to program in Basic & ASM at that time though. It wasn't until the summer in-between the 9th & 10th grade that I got my first IBM clone. A 286 that I found in a dumpster behind a company in San Jose. I went to the Library and checked out multiple books on how to troubleshoot & repair PC's, and set about fixing it. No WWW back then, just BBS's.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

I remember all that good stuff. I was in the Atari ST realm myself. After I moved off my Commodore 128.

[@exidy-yt]

@@ClassicMicrocomputers As much as I appreciated Jack Tramiel's 'computers for the masses, not the classes' philosophy, I decided to wait for the Amiga 500 to launch before jumping from the Commodore 64. The ST just seemed too limited compared to the Amiga's incredible Jay Miner's (of Atari 8-bit fame) designed custom chipset that REALLY took advantage of the Motorola 68000 family's architecture for the future at a lower price-point and was not disappointed. Not until the early 90s and the obvious superiority of the Intel CPU's raw power combined with the flexability of the VGA standard and the advent of the Sound Blaster taking advantage of the greater RAM of the PC systems to produce amazing digital audio that I very reluctantly gave in and joined the PC Master Race.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

I hear you. I had my PC clone too but I've also had a Mac on desk since the SE days.

[@LuminosityUK]

In the 70s undergraduate comp sci students were making movies by painting one frame at time on a Tektronix 4010 display and photographing it with a film camera. The film was then shown like a regular film. The University of London had a networked service for this. I think sending the screen clear command effectively advanced the frame. You could dump to fiche or 35mm as well.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

oh wow, that's cool!

[@mikethespike7579]

Amazing. In 1973 - 1975 I worked with others on a project to use a computer to play music. For this we developed and built what we at the time called an "interface" that connected a computer - in this case a computer from Wang - with a synthesiser. It was as big as a large suitcase and was a forerunner of what we now call a sound card or sound chip. This "interface" generated quite a bit of interest in the pop music world and we sold a couple of them to people such as Kraftwerk, Frank Zappa and even Paul McCartney. We were definitely onto something big, but needless to say, we didn't have a Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Bill Gates among us who could have turned our small Garage workshop into a multinational enterprise and after a couple of years we all went our different ways.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh wow, cool story. Do you remember, was that a Wang 2200? Thanks for sharing 🙂

[@mikethespike7579]

@@ClassicMicrocomputers Sorry, I haven't a clue. All I know is that it was made up of two separate components, one with a built in monitor and keyboard, and that it took up a whole desk, and I mean underneath and on top of it. Wang lent it to us and I remember driving over to Frankfurt, Germany, in a van to pick it up and later take it to Berlin (west) to show it all off at a concert. I also remember German television doing a programme about it and calling it a technological wonder that maybe marked the end of the way music is traditionally made. LOL! BTW, we also played around producing computer graphics on the university mainframe using ASCI code. We stored the code for that on punchcards, one shoebox full for each graphic.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

LOL, fun stuff!

[@arlandi]

this is the first (and only) entry to Assembly '68. incredible.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh wow, cool info!

[@CoPoint]

Maybe I'm kinda k*lling the joke here, but, taken from Wikipedia: "The Assembly demoparty is an annual demoscene and gaming event in Finland." It was first held in 1992, and it's _still_ legendary... But the sentiment holds up: even before that, the demo coders were pushing the limits of what could be wrung out of the technical limitations of the hardware of their current era, at times to within a hair of the breaking point 😁, and this _would_ have been well worthy of the '68 edition 😄👍...

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@smakfu1375]

@@arlandi Only because our CDC 6600 was overclocked and Seymour couldn’t get our prod to run.

[@sebastian19745]

By searching about Dr. Jack Citron, it seems that this was not the first and not the only such film made with a computer around those times. Homage to Rameau (1967), Permutations (1968) and Osaka 1-2-3 (also 1968) are few that I find about.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome!

[@khaitomretro]

​​@@ClassicMicrocomputersThere was John Whitney's "Catalogue" in 1961

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh, that's pretty interesting. I jotted it down and have to do some digging. Thanks for the heads up.

[@DrakeSteele]

Love the psychedelia of that - looks like a color phosphor oscilloscope display. Very cool, and very fitting for '68.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Actually, black and white. They used color filters when they shot the footage.

[@JamesJeude]

My mom bought me a book from 1970 “Tje Computer and Music” edited by Harry B Lincoln, in 1975 when I started my computer science classes at Washington University (Saint Louis). It changed my life. I did some computer music work at Iowa State University, and got my computer engineering degree there. I never took a job in the field but it continues to fascinate me.

[@s90210h]

Great find! I've seen the film in overviews of Structural Film, and animation history classes at art school. Computers and art have history together fo sho

[@s90210h]

I highly recommend the contemporary film work of Joost Rekveld if you like films with computers, about computers

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Hey, awesome!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Cool. Time to do some Googling 🙂

[@redhorsereincarnated]

Now I know where John Bonham got the idea for the Moby Dick solo

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@graeschuster4952]

This looks like what I used to draw on my TI-83 merged with a Windows 95 screen saver. Impressive for the time.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀 Awesome!

[@NuGanjaTron]

Thx for posting this. Whitney did mindbuggering stuff. Before digital computers, he apparently used a modified electromechanical targetting computer to draw this stuff; the kind they used on battleships. This guy was _beyond_ hardcore. There's a few more of films on YT (Catalog, Arabesque, Matrix III), tho the quality (of the transfer) leaves a lot to be desired compared to what we see here. Thx again!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome! Glad you liked it. He was ahead of his time.

[@mal2ksc]

Just amazing to think that 15 years later, you could put a quarter in an arcade machine and _be in control_ of something like this, except while some other collection of glowing dots was trying to kill you. My initial thought was that all film was shot in black and white, and then they filtered it as they projected it onto the screen from multiple projectors at the same time. This part they would film in color, and there's the movie. I like the musical selection and think it was very well chosen. It's one of those times I can hear something like 5:3 polyrhythms and think "did they just... oh yeah, that's kinda what the film is about."

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Interesting thought about the filming.

[@TastyBusiness]

I'm getting Gumbasia vibes (probably because of the music). This is a really cool find!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome!!! Glad you liked it!

[@oldsteempunk6728]

Amazing for 1968. Can't believe I've never seen this before! 🤯👍

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome! Glad you liked it!

[@Wurlyscope]

Wow! That must have taken a very long time to generate all those graphic equations. Specially with the technology of the time. Thank you!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome! Glad you liked it!

[@AndrewTubbiolo]

It's a "demo" in the spirit of the kind of programming that would become cache in the 1980's with the sub-MIP 8 bit computers popular in that decade.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

OG's of the demo scene

[@HariWiguna]

Thank you for sharing that. I've never heard or seen it. Very creative use of the spirograph patterns. I especially like superimposed lines at 4:42.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@kurtb8474]

I remember this film. I checked it out of our local county library around the mid 70s I think.

[@NicleT]

WoW! That was fantastic to discover. It reminded me of some Norman McLaren's works. Thank you so much for sharing.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@projectartichoke]

Very cool! Truly an interesting piece of both computing history and art history. I'm assuming that's a vector-based display?

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Yes. I believe they used the IBM 2250 graphics display

[@leocomerford]

Well into the 1970s quite a lot of computer animation was done that way: using multiple exposures onto film rather than a framebuffer.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Interesting stuff. I use to design video cards so I love exploring the history of graphics technology and it's usage.

[@Trick-Framed]

Wonderful channel. Great video. Just subbed. Just liked.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Thanks and welcome 😀

[@emulatedandie]

Think this is my fave video of yours so far! Great and interesting find.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Yay! Thank you!

[@LaPabst]

It's amazing how this has all become so silly looking. Man, it was the razor edge back in the day. I remember the Cola (I think it was cola) commercial, the mercury girl. It blew me away. But, sadly, nothing dates an era like technology as it moves so very fast.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Still fun to find these treasures in the archives!

[@LaPabst]

@@ClassicMicrocomputers For sure! Just can't believe how fast things move. Seems like only yesterday.

[@ClawsNGloves]

That was mystical and very impressive and to think it was done on a computer in 1968 and filmed like a movie hah.

[@chrismofer]

Im very curious how long each frame took to render. In guessing several seconds based on the number of apparent trig operations on display

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Yeah, I wonder how long the whole process took.

[@warphammer]

There was recently a small exhibition of Lilian Schwartz' work at the Henry Ford Museum. Interestingly she'd worked with some people on some similar abstract films.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh wow. I'm in Michigan and visit the Henry Ford a couple of times a year. I didn't know about that one though.

[@paulj0557tonehead]

Great! Enjoyed this very much, subbing!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Thanks for the sub! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@SellamAbraham]

This is terrific. Thanks for sharing.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

My pleasure!

[@ruslanzalata]

1. This must be the first demo ever made. A demo as in Demoscene. 2. Watching this in real life from CRT would be much more fascinating.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

It's cool to think that even back then they were thinking of computers as an art platform.

[@douglashalfpenny1220]

Hey Rob... good stuff. I think I'm your 200th subscriber

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Heck yeah Doug!!!

[@jimmorrison2657]

That must have been some badass computer for it's time to be able to do this. And a decent programmer.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

supersize IBM S/360 that filled a room!

[@BenjaminMaggi]

That's very interesting music, Marthy

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

I thought so too.

[@weareone6314]

Wow, mindblowing for the 1960s

[@fischX]

Somehow you can feel that this was just rooms away from the famous LSD research at UCLA of that time 😂

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@1st_ProCactus]

That was pretty cool. He even tried for a bit a audio syncing

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

I noticed that too!

[@ZER0--]

It sounds polyrhythmic.

[@1st_ProCactus]

@@ClassicMicrocomputers I assume it's a ton of clips been made into a video. The way some hand selected scenes were done looks exactly as I used to do as a kid. I miss the days where i could spend weeks playing with random code and the variables that go into it.

[@1st_ProCactus]

I also assume the partial audio sync was done through trial and error too. Otherwise it would be more consistent from start to finish.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

@@1st_ProCactus Yep, then with a color filter applied over top.

[@K-Effect]

That’s what it looks like inside of CERN the large Hydron collider when it’s colliding particles

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

With a lot more heat. Well, what was rolling off that IBM 360, maybe not. 😀

[@ptorq]

I'd love to find a copy of Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus, which was a computer animation of, well, the Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus showing how the three different proteins that combine to form the capsule, well, combine to form the capsule. If I remember properly only the protein backbone (and maybe only the alpha carbons) were shown. I saw it in 1990 or 1991 just before the ACS meeting in Washington DC, but even then it was pretty old.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Interesting.

[@fixman88]

Amazing!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@ukranaut]

I like how it doesn't show a rotating 3D object at any point, despite obviosly being able to, it's like they knew it would immediately make it look dated for a distant future viewer.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😮 Interesting.

[@bewilderbeestie]

It's a shame the capture is so low-resolution --- the extreme pixelation combines unpleasantly with KZbin compression to complete wreck a lot of the fine detail. If a cleaner capture ever shows up, I'd be really interested to see it.

[@-Error99]

I'm sure older viewers of the time just dismissed it as an "electronic kaleidoscope"

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

LOL, they might have.

[@PeBoVision]

I bought my first computer in 1982....it has 16k of RAM, a 90k disk drive and a resolution of 256x192. This would have blown me away. It still does, except now my mind sees the code running.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Do you remember what kind it was?

[@PeBoVision]

@@ClassicMicrocomputers Remember ?? I still boot it up several times a month. It was/is a TI-99/4A. Although I have swapped out the VDP for a modern equivalent with VGA output and enhanced feature set, use SD and CF cards more than floppies these days, and installed a modern power supply to protect my 43 year investment from unpleasantly plump capacitors, I have never had to replace a single component because of failure. That is a combination of dumb luck (old electronics DO die) AND the superior build quality of consumer electronics between then and now.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome! I have two of them and the expansion box! Look for some upcoming episodes involving those machines.

[@PeBoVision]

@@ClassicMicrocomputers I spent a small inheritence from my grandmother on an Expansion Box in '83... $1200 for the PEB, 2 half height drives, RS232, Disc Controller and 32K. Today it includes a 1MB SAMS card, aTIPI card (rasberryPI interface), and a SIDmaster for all those wonderful C64 chiptunes. I wanted a P-code card, but they are prone to failure these days, and my tech wizardry is insufficient for dealing with problematic components. Anyway, I'm out of slots, so would need another PEB. I had no idea when I originally bought everything, that I was prepping for retirement but here we are.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh wow!

[@gh975223]

What kind of Terminal was used for Graphics on the s/360? as TN3270 to my knowledge cannot do graphics only text

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

I believe it was an IBM 2250 graphics display terminal - it had vector drawing capabilities.

[@truebones]

amazingly it looks like the atom

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Yeah, at times it does.

[@kjamison5951]

3:38 Don’t squint, DON’T SQUINT!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@marklsimonson]

I wonder if this was influenced at all by the Spirograph toy, which was popular around 1968. It reminds me of it.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh, interesting observation. I wonder 🤔

[@Alex-o2q9l]

Wow, that’s a demo worth an Adobe keygen !

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

LOL, Love it!

[@truebones]

beautiful

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@dav1dbone]

Better than many new cgi movies today

[@davidmckendry4491]

This could easily beat my Ryzen system hands down!!!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@sarreqteryx]

whoever has the original film needs to re-convert it with a better film scanner, and better compression, this one looks like it was done in the early 2000's with a webcam and QuickTime.

[@xn--8xa]

Explanation of how the colour (EN-CAN = color ;-) effects were done is appreciated - simple if you know how. Probably best watched when not under "the influence " of drugs available in that era ;-) Put me in mind of Pink Floydd. Thank you for sharing your research directly rather than doing the "link in the description" thing.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

It was fun to tie that all together. That music really hit it off for me. LOL.

[@Macsimski2]

i see a lot of double exposures. the color film was put twice in the camera. first with a green filter in front an a second time with a red filter. at some point the film magazine was not hermetically sealed against light as you see a red haze on the side. it is only in red.

[@jimbotron70]

If Kubrick had this technology available for the space-time warp in 2001. Same year.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Cool movie!

[@carystrunk5771]

Jeff Minter eat your heart out!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Long live Llamasoft!

[@herzogsbuick]

oh -- hi! i didn't see you there either! :-D

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀😀

[@TimeLapseSweden]

Great!

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Glad you liked it!

[@euglossine_tristanwhitehill]

Saw some of his works at the moma

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh cool.

[@funkowop3573]

I can't believe ZUN invented Touhou in 1968...

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀 hey, I know how we can make this better...

[@tomattore]

And here is a link to a more traditional animation technique, which became mainstream in 25 years. It is a frame animation of a cat (the film title is "kitty") made by students from the USSR on a computer from the USSR (BESM-4 "big electronic computing machine") at the time they yet built domestic computers. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIjMiIynq7VjeLc

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Very neat!

[@grummbunger]

I made an apple record my radio useing the 555 chip.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Awesome! Got any pictures?

[@Wol333]

Wonder if these techniques are still useful for low latency visual affects.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Probably. I was just watching a video the other day on a lost effect Disney used. Interesting stuff.

[@Gil3490]

that's an ayahuasca trip if you ask me

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@johnhess351]

If you watched that on LSD you would have a meltdown.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@Frisenette]

Never been too impressed with his movies. Neither from a technical or artistic point of view. Technically they are just animated Spirograph and analog integrators. Much more impressive stuff was happening at the time. The intro to Vertigo is basically as good as it got.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Interesting.

[@WhiteCamry]

It looks like Spiro-Graph.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@Peter_S_]

No viewing of John Whitney's film work is complete with also watching "Arabesque" from 1975.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Oh, I gotta go check that out.

[@esra_erimez]

Interesting

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

Glad you liked it 🙂

[@algi1]

Interesting that the music isn't synth.

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

I love the tie-together though.

[@ZER0--]

It is cool af.

[@kevinlcarlson]

Precursor to Laserium?

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀 probably!

[@1marcelfilms]

It cost 400000 dollar to generate 12 seconds

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@svofski]

AMIGAAAA!!!!111111

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@davidmckendry4491]

Seems like someone has been busy with styrograph here...

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@Fetrovsky]

Do you need LSD to fully experience and appreciate this art?

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@DimasFajar-ns4vb]

yeah more bridge or railroad or tunnel will be amazing sir

[@NuGanjaTron]

3:35 Swastika alert. Hope the PC squad has the day off. 🤣

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😂

[@choppergirl]

Mine on the PDP was soooo much more interesting kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIKcpIR7ocd_ja8

[@BogattheMoon]

More bongo

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@snakezdewiggle6084]

There's just 10 types people in the world today that understand binary.! Those who do, and those who don't. 🔵🔴

[@ClassicMicrocomputers]

😀

[@blainedunlap8571]

we need an HD scan, if you can't do it right, let us wait until someone can