Keyboard Builders' Digest / Keyboard Spotting
Abekas A72
An Abekas A72 digital character generator spotted by u/drake9800.
Published October 14, 2022
Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 150K readers.
Not much info on this beauty, but I wanted to include it to be able to find it later…
So the Abekas A72, posted by u/drake9800, was a digital character generator (CG).
If the character generator part needs some explanation, they are devices that produced static or animated text (such as news crawls and credits rolls) for keying into a video stream.
(E.g. here is another character generator featured earlier.)
This specific Abekas model was probably quite popular, at least according to this article, discussing the design of the Abekas A72, and how its architecture has affected its evolution:
The A72 was built to offer the highest possible character quality and smooth motion effects, but it was initially unable to satisfy market needs for density and complexity of text pages. However, the flexibility of its design allowed the system to grow and evolve, and to offer capabilities and effects previously thought impossible to implement. The use of many general-purpose processors, with software used to control even low-level tasks normally “hard-wired” on a CG, allowed this growth to occur with few hardware modifications to existing models. This approach proved invaluable in keeping the CG up-to-date, and it may prove to be increasingly advantageous for future equipment design.
Published on Fri 14th Oct 2022. Featured in KBD #99 (source).
Related
TRS-80 Model 4
The TRS-80 Model 4 is the last Z80-based home computer family by Radio Shack, sold from April 1983 through late 1991. Posted by Tomegajones.
One-handed Maltron
A Maltron found by lychee-ramune while cleaning up a storage room.
1970s Cortron keyboard
A gorgeous Cortron keyboard with ITW magnetic valve switches made for Sperry Univac systems. Posted by u/catsontuesday.
SKALA computer system
The Soviet SKALA was the process computer for the RBMK Nuclear Reactor at Chernobyl NPP.
Fujifilm Frontier negative scanner
Ortho board on a Fujifilm Frontier negative scanner. Spotted by Benjaminfjer.