"The heart of the Charactron shaped beam tube is the character matrix. A highly advanced photoengraving process etches minute openings in the shape of alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers) and other symbols in a thin metal disc. These characters are transferred to the screen area of the CRT and then photographed on film (as part of the computer output microfilm process) or displayed on a terminal (as in our 132-column display products). This Charactron shaped beam tube forms the heart of most of Datagraphix' products."
So the COM recorders rendered each frame to a CRT and then a film frame is shot. It sounds like the CRT was a storage-type (with a persistent phosphor). Now this describes character graphics while all of the animations were vector. But the 4060 is a "graphic recorder" which sounds like it could do vector drawings. The colors probably came from a filter put over the lens. You could do different shades by either changing the beam power or the drawing speed.
I'm more stumped with how they produced the multi-color animations at 13 & 22 minutes. I'm guessing they had to stack multiple shots onto the same film with different color filters over the film camera lens.
IBM 360/67 Computer
Stromberg Datagraphix 4060 Graphic Recorder
And then from http://datagraphix.us/DX-history.html
"The heart of the Charactron shaped beam tube is the character matrix. A highly advanced photoengraving process etches minute openings in the shape of alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers) and other symbols in a thin metal disc. These characters are transferred to the screen area of the CRT and then photographed on film (as part of the computer output microfilm process) or displayed on a terminal (as in our 132-column display products). This Charactron shaped beam tube forms the heart of most of Datagraphix' products."
So the COM recorders rendered each frame to a CRT and then a film frame is shot. It sounds like the CRT was a storage-type (with a persistent phosphor). Now this describes character graphics while all of the animations were vector. But the 4060 is a "graphic recorder" which sounds like it could do vector drawings. The colors probably came from a filter put over the lens. You could do different shades by either changing the beam power or the drawing speed.
I'm more stumped with how they produced the multi-color animations at 13 & 22 minutes. I'm guessing they had to stack multiple shots onto the same film with different color filters over the film camera lens.