Rebooting An 1973 Art Installation Running On A Nova
1 min read
Summary
The original 1973 art installation was a neon display controlled by a Data General Nova 1210 minicomputer, with inputs provided by an array of push buttons, housed in Seattle-Tacoma airport’s Terminal C.
It has now been re-created using 16x16ws2811 LED modules, a Teensy 4.0, and a Raspberry Pi 4, with the original code driven by a modified SIMH Nova emulator, and a second Teensy to simulate the original sound synthesis and scan an 8x8 push-button array.
The original artist, James Seabright, not only kept the engineering drawings and schematics, but also the original paper tape of the Nova 1210 program, which allowed the re-creation to be authentically retro, right down to the electronics sculptures decorating the pedestal.
The re-creation is documented on a GitHub repo, and there are videos on YouTube.
