MIDAS

The MIDAS assembler was design and implementated by Robert Saunders (the assembler guru of the TX-0 gang), and was partly designed using ideas from Steve Russell. The MIT software for the DEC PDP-1 was originally done on the TX-0, using a cross-assembler. This was one of the first uses of this technique. To create the cross-assembler, MIDAS was loaded with a PDP-1 instruction set symbol table, and an elementary routine to re-format the resulting binary tape to match the PDP-1 loader requirements.

Mouse Maze

Douglas Ross and John Ward wrote the much heard of "Mouse Maze" game, where a mouse would searche through a maze on the CRT until it found a piece of cheese which it would then eat. A variation of this game was later constructed in which the mouse would search for martini glasses and become increasingly drunk as it drank from them.

Expensive Tape Recorder

Alan Kotok brought an old mono FM receiver into the computer room and David Gross worked on creating a system that would take input through the A/D converter and record onto the mag tape as one long continuous record. Playback was done from the mag tape through the D/A converter for the Y-axis of the CRT (attached to the accumulator), through an oscilloscope and then to the 9-bit audio amplifier. David tells that the program had to load data in the accumulator using an XOR because anything else would clear the accumulator momentarily and produce an audible whistle. They were able to increment the X axis to produce a live display on the CRT during playback.

Tom Stockham used this system as the inspiration for the founding of his company Soundstream which got the entire digital audio industry off the ground.