PDPs in the news!
Alan Greig
Which begins:
Microsoft founder opens PDP fetish site
Tap an old box
By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View
Published Tuesday 10th January 2006 01:36 GMT
Get breaking Reg news straight to your desktop - click here to find out how
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has expressed his undying love for DEC's
PDP computer in a very public fashion - he's created a website dedicated
to the machine.
PDP Planet went live today as a way to commemorate the venerable line of
DEC systems. The site includes scintillating photos of PDP computers -
some of which have their motherboards and backplanes exposed. In
addition, the site has some racy restoration stories and allows you to
"log-in" to a pair of PDPs that have been brought back to life.
PDP Planet is at http://www.pdpplanet.com/
--
Alan Greig
Bill Gunshannon
in my basement (most running!!) and after working out licensing with
MENTEC I am currently trying to get a few set up for students to play
with here at the University. There is a large number of enthusiasts
most of whom have never stopped working with PDP-11's. More important
than that, there are still businesses actively using PDP-11's. One
of the reason's there is no Hobbyist License and an Edu agreement was
so difficult to iron out is that MENTEC is still actively selling PDP-11
Licenses!!
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bi...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
David Evans
Bill Gunshannon <bi...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>
>And this warrants a page in the newspaper? I have half a dozen PDP-11's
>in my basement (most running!!) and after working out licensing with
>MENTEC I am currently trying to get a few set up for students to play
>with here at the University.
I'd say that it's a bit more of an enterprise to run a few PDP-10s
than it is to run a dozen PDP-11s. That said, the PDP Planet site and
machines have been running for a few months now, so the article isn't
entirely accurate. The author also seems a bit confused about what PDP
means.
--
David Evans
Faculty of Computer Science dfe...@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
Alan Greig
Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> Silly me, I assumed PDP-11 (I thought that was where he and Gates actually
> began). It's just a PDP-10. Maybe they should do an article on the PDP-11
> world!
>
> bill
>
Although Allen and Gates did most of their early work on PDP-10s, the
PDP Planet site also has running PDP-8s and PDP-11s. I have no doubt
that if he could find enough PDP-6 hardware he'd try and get one up and
running as well. Or any other PDP for that matter.
--
Alan Greig
Mike Ross
wrote:
<snip>
>Although Allen and Gates did most of their early work on PDP-10s, the
>PDP Planet site also has running PDP-8s and PDP-11s. I have no doubt
>that if he could find enough PDP-6 hardware he'd try and get one up and
>running as well. Or any other PDP for that matter.
Indeed. Allen has the money and the people; he should get in touch
with Peter Löthberg in Sweden who has a warehouse full of PDP-10s,
including KI and KA machines:
http://www.stupi.se/Bilder/pdp-10/index.html
Would be very cool to see a KI or KA running again...
Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
'As I walk along these shores
I am the history within'
Tim Radde
State. I was recently told it
was scrapped in 1992, but was fully functional at that time. Such a
waste that they would not
allow someone to rescue it back then.
Tim
Bob Supnik
the state of 'restoration' for PDP's. I hope others will supplement
this list with more/better/revised data. (Abbrevaitions: CHM =
Computer History Museum, RCS = Retro Computing Society Rhode Island,
PPDP = Planet PDP, BACK = Max Burnet Collection Australia, CS =
CoreStore)
PDP-1 - system being restored at CHM
(PDP-2 - none built)
(PDP-3 - none built)
PDP-4 - multiple units at CHM; not considered restorable
PDP-5 - unit at CHM; not considered restorable
PDP-6 - no complete unit extant
PDP-7 - unit at BACK; not considered restorable. There was a nearly
running PDP-7 at U/Oslo, nothing has been heard about it for serveral
years; and rumors of one in Oregon
PDP-8
- classic - running unit at BACK, probably others
- 8/S - running unit at BACK, probably others
- 8/I - running unit at BACK, running unit at CS
- 8/E - many units running, various collectors
- 8/A - many units running, various collectors (and some real apps?)
PDP-9
- 9 - restored unit at Aconit Grenoble France (now mothballed?)
- unit being restored at RCS
- 9/L - running unit at BACK
PDP-10
- KA - ?
- KI - ?
- KL - running unit at PPDP, other collectors
- KS - several units at private collectors
PDP-11 - many units running, collectors and real apps
PDP-12 - running unit at RCS, two at CS not functional
(PDP-13 - none built)
PDP-14 - ?
PDP-15 - BACK has one, CS has two; functional status unknown
PDP-16 - ?
Finally, there is the 'honorary' PDP-64, aka Beta, aka the Alpha PC.
Built by Dave Conroy as a demonstration that Alpha's unimaginable 30W
(!) power dissipation could be matched to PC technology, it was
powered on during one of the many interludes when Alpha's name was
being "reconsidered". The boxes were labeled 'PDP-64' both as a
tribute to DEC's roots and as a commentary on the many name and logo
changes in the Alpha line. One unit is at CHM, and another is in the
hands of a private collector.
/Bob Supnik
JF Mezei
> PDP Planet is at http://www.pdpplanet.com/
The links don't work because they make gratuitous use of javascript
instead of a simple <a href statement.
And the front page has over 28 HTML errors. Obviously designed by a
microsoft person/software.
Mark Crispin
unless you consider these just to be 8/E variants.
A PDP-3 was built, but not by DEC. I have a copy of the instruction set
specification. I don't think that the PDP-2 ever got as far as a
specification beyond being a 24(?) bit machine.
There never was a PDP-13.
The PDP-14 and PDP-16 can't really be considered to be computers....
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Eric Smith
> The PDP-14 and PDP-16 can't really be considered to be computers....
The PDP-14 is a Harvard architecture computer. It executes a stored
program out of memory, and has a simple LU (logic unit, as opposed to
ALU). Although it doesn't have an ADD instruction, you could write a
program to add binary numbers (or BCD, etc.) I don't see why it shouldn't
be considered a computer.
The PDP-16 (plain) isn't a computer, but rather a set of Register Transfer
Modules (RTMs) which can potentially be used to construct one. But the
PDP-16/M *is* a computer, built out of RTMs.
Many people seem to have thought at one time or another there was a PDP-20,
but there wasn't. Various DEC documentation does reference the KL20, which
term apparently described the KL10 models which were packaged in corporate
cabinets with "internal" memory (MA20/MB20 core or MF20/MG20 MOS). In
addition to the 2040/2050/2060/2065, this designation would presumably be
applicable to the 1091 and 1095.
Eric
Mark Crispin
> The PDP-14 is a Harvard architecture computer. It executes a stored
> program out of memory, and has a simple LU (logic unit, as opposed to
> ALU). Although it doesn't have an ADD instruction, you could write a
> program to add binary numbers (or BCD, etc.) I don't see why it shouldn't
> be considered a computer.
The PDP-14 was a 12 bit process control engine (with a 1 bit register!),
and basically replaced a set of relays. The PDP-8 proved to be more
suitable for this, but DEC did build a PDP-14 which had a PDP-8 for its
console processor...
> The PDP-16 (plain) isn't a computer, but rather a set of Register Transfer
> Modules (RTMs) which can potentially be used to construct one. But the
> PDP-16/M *is* a computer, built out of RTMs.
How many PDP-16/M machines were actually constructed? I don't believe
that the PDP-16 line solve particularly well, and in general each PDP-16
was more or less custom-designed by the customer.
> Many people seem to have thought at one time or another there was a PDP-20,
> but there wasn't.
Of course not.
> Various DEC documentation does reference the KL20
I've only seen "KL20" used twice in DEC documentation, both obvious
errors.
One is in the TOPS-20 System Manager's Guide, where there is one occurance
of "KL20"; everywhere else is the correct "KL10". The other is in
BUILD.MEM which uses "KL20" to describe the PARAMS.MAC DTEN setting.
AFAICT, DEC never trademarked "KL20", which they would have done if that
was a blessed DEC name.
DEC was generally very careful to use model numbers such as KL10-E,
KL10-PV, etc. Some of this nomenclature is very confusing though, you
needed a scorecard to keep track of all the names (and often different
names for the same thing).
Mike Ross
<bob.s...@sicortex.nospam.com> wrote:
<big snips>
>The Register squib on PDP Planet made me inventory what I know about
>the state of 'restoration' for PDP's. I hope others will supplement
>this list with more/better/revised data. (Abbrevaitions: CHM =
>Computer History Museum, RCS = Retro Computing Society Rhode Island,
>PPDP = Planet PDP, BACK = Max Burnet Collection Australia, CS =
>CoreStore)
>PDP-15 - BACK has one, CS has two; functional status unknown
One of mine (CS) is/should be runnable - it was running when carefully
disassembled by me. The other is slightly more problematic - a few
missing bits, damaged cables, but can probably be got running
*relatively* easily.
I know of a few others 15s - I'm told Mark Hyde has at least two in
Syracuse; one is ?allegedly? running, the other is pile of bits in
someone elses garage. E & OE here. There's one allegedly running or
was running recently in private hands in the midwest; that has been
promised to me but negotiations on actually moving the thing are
glacial. And I hope there's still one in Scotland - there was one in
the National Museum of Scotland storage area at East Fortune airfield,
near Edinburgh (I saw it with my own eyes 10-15 years ago). It wasn't
part of a computer collection/exhibit, it was a medical collection -
early scanners etc. The exhibit was an early CAT scanner or similar;
the pdp-15 was incidental, it just happened to be the control/display
device.
I Robert Garner / CHM also has one; it came from Kevin Stumpf in
Canada. There was a chap (his name escapes me) in/near Niagara Falls
that had a -15 too; I remember he did a stunning job on an Alto
restoration, and is now into making dirty bomb detectors (!) AFAIK.
But this may (or may not) be the same machine that Kevin S. passed on
to Robert Garner. I do remember the Niagara Falls machine had a
drum...!
Any additions or corrections welcome.
Patricia Tressel
> The links don't work because they make gratuitous use of javascript
> instead of a simple <a href statement.
D'you mean they won't work without javascript enabled? They work 4 me, and I'm
running mozilla on Linux... ;-)
> And the front page has over 28 HTML errors.
Plus the mismatch in the character encoding -> 29 errors found by the W3
validator (validator.w3.org -- very handy, 'specially if you're teaching HTML).
But there may be other errors, and also some non-errors induced by the presence
of the /> end tag shortcuts, which are not valid 4.0 Transitional, and which
weird the validator's parser out. Only 4 of the errors might be due to />.
The missing alt tags and script types are all real errors. Tsk.
> Obviously designed by a microsoft person/software.
There's no "content generator" meta tag, and the page source has none of the
weird font cruft I associate with (e.g.) conversion from a Word doc, so this may
be hand-written.
-- Pat T.
Eric Smith
> The PDP-14 is a Harvard architecture computer. It executes a stored
> program out of memory, and has a simple LU (logic unit, as opposed to
> ALU). Although it doesn't have an ADD instruction, you could write a
> program to add binary numbers (or BCD, etc.) I don't see why it shouldn't
> be considered a computer.
Mark Crispin <M...@CAC.Washington.EDU> writes:
> The PDP-14 was a 12 bit process control engine (with a 1 bit
> register!), and basically replaced a set of relays. The PDP-8 proved
> to be more suitable for this, but DEC did build a PDP-14 which had a
> PDP-8 for its console processor...
The fact that it was intended to replace relays doesn't keep it from
being a computer. It was a digital machine that executed a stored
program. What more do you want?
> I've only seen "KL20" used twice in DEC documentation, both obvious
> errors.
I'm not convinced that they are errors. I think it was a designation
that was used in engineering for a while, as it appears in quite a few
technical documents, and even in the 36-bit chapter of Bell's book
"Computer Engineering: A DEC View of Hardware Design", where the
differences between the KL10 and KL20 are described.
> AFAICT, DEC never trademarked "KL20", which they would have done if
> that was a blessed DEC name.
They generally only trademarked names used by marketing. In some cases,
a product part number was deemed worthy of trademarking, but most
product part numbers (e.g., RH20, RP06, etc) were not.
There are many other part numbers related to the PDP-10 that were not
commonly seen. For instance, even though there's no such thing as
a DECsystem 1020, the part numbers 1020-AB and 1020-CB were orderable,
and consisted of a KS10-AB, LA36-HJ, RP03-AD or RP06-AB, and TOPS-10
(i.e., the TOPS-10 versions of the 2020-AB and 2020-CB systems). But
despite the part number, the product name was still DECSYSTEM-2020.
> DEC was generally very careful to use model numbers such as KL10-E,
> KL10-PV, etc.
Not really. The hardware people, software people, and marketing often
didn't agree on things.
For instance, a KL10 Model A isn't necessarily a KL10-Ax, and a KL10
Model B isn't a KL10-Bx. Rather, the "Model A" and "Model B"
designations were what the software people called systems based on the
KL10-PA and KL10-PV APR, respectively. So a 1080 was a "Model A" using
a KL10-A CPU with a KL10-PA APR, but a 1090 could be a "Model A" using a
KL10-B CPU with a KL10-PA APR, or a "Model B" using a KL10-D CPU with a
KL10-PV APR.
> Some of this nomenclature is very confusing though, you
> needed a scorecard to keep track of all the names (and often different
> names for the same thing).
Definitely.
Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
Greig <grei...@netscape.net> writes:
> The site includes scintillating photos of PDP computers -
> some of which have their motherboards and backplanes exposed. In
> addition, the site has some racy restoration stories and allows you to
> "log-in" to a pair of PDPs that have been brought back to life.
Aren't porn sites off-topic for this newsgroup? In some countries,
logging in to something with an exposed backplane, or even telling a
racy story about it, is illegal.
:-)
Also, surely that should be "titillating" not "scintillating".
Stanley F. Quayle
They asked me a couple of years ago if I could come up with an emulated
system (such as CHARON-11 and CHARON-VAX, which I sell). Their
interest waned when I quoted a price, but that's the price of being
*really* behind the times.
sho...@trailing-edge.com
> - 8/E - many units running, various collectors
> - 8/A - many units running, various collectors (and some real apps?)
I know of several 8/E's and 8/A's in production use, running apps from
asphalt mixers
to palletizers to medical imaging. Most were installed in the late 70's
to early 80's, and they
will probably continue in production as long as the machinery is in use
(the machines/plants
are realistically on their last legs but they've kept them running with
chewing gum and
scotch tape.)
Tim.
sho...@trailing-edge.com
I cringe when I see Paul Allen's other sites (e.g. www.vulcan.com).
It's the sort of
trendy web design that I associate with 1999 or 2000, lots of
gratuitous use of
plug-ins and very little actual content. Actually there may be much
content it's just
that I give up in disgust before ever figuring out how to get there.
www.pdpplanet.com is not bad at all in comparison.
Tim.
David Dyer-Bennet
> PDP Planet went live today as a way to commemorate the venerable line
> of DEC systems. The site includes scintillating photos of PDP
> computers -
> some of which have their motherboards and backplanes exposed. In
> addition, the site has some racy restoration stories and allows you to
> "log-in" to a pair of PDPs that have been brought back to life.
"Scintillating photos" my <whatever>. I've seen most of these images
before, and they're mostly poorly focused, poorly lit, and poorly
exposed.
Not to complain *too* much. I'm glad to have the photos that exist
online and easy to find.
And, in the spirit of not complaining about things I'm not willing to
help fix, anybody working with historic computer gear in day-trip
range of Minneapolis MN and wanting photos taken is invited to get in
touch with me. Currently I'm also in the Palo Alto area about a week
out of every month and could easily arrange to do some shooting around
there.
I'd *also* be happy to be flown anywhere else to photograph
interesting old computers, but despite a medium-large ego I really
don't think I'm so exceptional a photographer that that would make
sense. But I urge people with old computers to find the good
photographers among their friends and cow-orkers and *get pictures*.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
Robert Krten
> There's a PDP-10 running a process-control application here in Ohio.
What kind of 10?
> They asked me a couple of years ago if I could come up with an emulated
> system (such as CHARON-11 and CHARON-VAX, which I sell). Their
> interest waned when I quoted a price, but that's the price of being
> *really* behind the times.
How complicated is their process-control application? How about I/Os?
Basically, I'm asking if it could be done on a PC. I've been involved
with process control systems under QNX on PCs with good success...
Cheers,
-RK
--
Robert Krten, Antique computer collector looking for PDP-series
minicomputers; check out their "good home" at www.parse.com/~museum
Email address is valid; greylisting spam filter in effect.
JF Mezei
> help fix, anybody working with historic computer gear in day-trip
> range of Minneapolis MN and wanting photos taken is invited to get in
> touch with me.
When my all mighty Microvax II turned 18 last year (that is 1000 years
in human terms :-), I showed it a DECDIRECT catalog full of pictures of
computers posing and naked circuit boards. I also suspect it may be into
bondage. Over the years, it has developed quite a web of cables in the
back :-)
(Right now, my MVII is naked. I've taken the side panels (I call them
"Princess Lea ears") off the cabinet. The cabinet will be used to house
the new machines. I feel terrible about decommissioning it.
Jim Stewart
> The Register squib on PDP Planet made me inventory what I know about
> the state of 'restoration' for PDP's. I hope others will supplement
> this list with more/better/revised data. (Abbrevaitions: CHM =
> Computer History Museum, RCS = Retro Computing Society Rhode Island,
> PPDP = Planet PDP, BACK = Max Burnet Collection Australia, CS =
> CoreStore)
>
> PDP-1 - system being restored at CHM
> (PDP-2 - none built)
> (PDP-3 - none built)
> PDP-4 - multiple units at CHM; not considered restorable
> PDP-5 - unit at CHM; not considered restorable
> PDP-6 - no complete unit extant
> PDP-7 - unit at BACK; not considered restorable. There was a nearly
> running PDP-7 at U/Oslo, nothing has been heard about it for serveral
> years; and rumors of one in Oregon
> PDP-8
> - classic - running unit at BACK, probably others
> - 8/S - running unit at BACK, probably others
> - 8/I - running unit at BACK, running unit at CS
> - 8/E - many units running, various collectors
> - 8/A - many units running, various collectors (and some real apps?)
I'm a little hurt that you didn't ask
about 8/L's. And the answer is yes,
I have one running (:
madcrow
Jan 11, 3:10 pm show options
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10, alt.sys.pdp8, alt.sys.pdp11
From: info2...@parse.com (Robert Krten) - Find messages by this author
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 14:10:39 -0600
Local: Wed, Jan 11 2006 3:10 pm
Subject: Re: The State of Restoration (was PDPs in the news!)
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show
original | Report Abuse
In alt.sys.pdp8 Stanley F. Quayle <qua...@pobox.com> wrote:
> There's a PDP-10 running a process-control application here in Ohio.
What kind of 10?
> They asked me a couple of years ago if I could come up with an emulated
> system (such as CHARON-11 and CHARON-VAX, which I sell). Their
> interest waned when I quoted a price, but that's the price of being
> *really* behind the times.
How complicated is their process-control application? How about I/Os?
Basically, I'm asking if it could be done on a PC. I've been involved
with process control systems under QNX on PCs with good success...
Cheers,
-RK
Process control sounds like a waste of a mainframe. The PDP-10 was
designed to allow multiple people to do inteactive work. Isn't process
control a simple task compared to that? I've seen Z80-based process
control things fer crying out loud.
Stanley F. Quayle
They're not sure, so I'm definitely not sure. I haven't seen it, but
my last PDP-10 experience was circa 1976 in college.
> How complicated is their process-control application?
By today's standards, probably not very.
> Basically, I'm asking if it could be done on a PC. I've been involved
> with process control systems under QNX on PCs with good success...
Well, they not only control the process, but have a database (was
originally kept on punched cards), plus do modeling with home-grown
Fortran programs.
If you're eligible for a DOE Q clearance, I could pass your name along.
All I ask is 10%.
Don Stokes
I wonder what happened to the -5 that Max Burnet (BACK) had at DEC? I
wouldn't have thought he'd have let it go. It was in pretty good nick.
-- don
Bob Supnik
wrote:
<snip>
>I'm a little hurt that you didn't ask
>about 8/L's. And the answer is yes,
>I have one running (:
It wasn't intended to be a snub. Having done CPU (chip) design for
long stretches, I tend to think in terms of the core CPU rather than
the packaging option. DEC loved to 'differentiate' what was basically
the same system by different letters or numbers, reflecting packaging
or purpose, e.g., the PDP-11/15 and 11/20 are the same computer, for
the OEM and end-user markets respectively.
There were five PDP-8 core CPU designs built out of discrete parts:
the original PDP-8, the 8/S, the 8/I, the 8/E, and the 8/A.
(Subsequent systems used the Intersil 6100 or the Harris 6120
processor chips.) The 8/L is a derivative of the 8/I (see
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dec-faq/pdp8-models/section-6.html), and I
"swept it up" under the 8/I (as the 8/M would be under the 8/E). I
understand that an owner, or a collector, might disagree, particularly
as there were some logic changes between the 8/I and the 8/L to lower
costs. Similar difficulties exist in the 18b line (1/A, 1/B, 1/C, 1D,
-7 vs -7A, 9 vs 9/L).
For the -11, it's a little easier, because DEC had part numbers for
the CPU subassemblies. Thus, it's clear that an /05 and /10, a /15
and /20, a /35 and /40 have identical CPU's. But for that matter, so
do the /45, /50, and /55, differing in their floating point unit and
the presense or absense of bipolar memory. I see them as one CPU
type, but many other people do not.
/Bob
toby
> ...There was a chap (his name escapes me) in/near Niagara Falls
> that had a -15 too; I remember he did a stunning job on an Alto
> restoration, and is now into making dirty bomb detectors (!) AFAIK.
That would be this: http://www.pdp8.com/alto.htm (John Bordynuik's,
according to http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/xerox-alto/).
Joe Smith
> There's a PDP-10 running a process-control application here in Ohio.
Is it really a PDP-10? Or perhaps a PDP-11/10?
-Joe
Dave Conroy
Rich Alderson
> I'm not convinced that they are errors. I think it was a designation
> that was used in engineering for a while, as it appears in quite a few
> technical documents, and even in the 36-bit chapter of Bell's book
> "Computer Engineering: A DEC View of Hardware Design", where the
> differences between the KL10 and KL20 are described.
It also occurs in Bell, Kotok, Hastings and Hill, "The Evolution of the
DECsystem-10", CACM 21.1 (Jan 1978).
--
Rich Alderson | /"\ ASCII ribbon |
ne...@alderson.users.panix.com | \ / campaign against |
"You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." | x HTML mail and |
--Death, of the Endless | / \ postings |
Rich Alderson
> If you're eligible for a DOE Q clearance, I could pass your name along.
> All I ask is 10%.
In that case, I know who it is, what kind (and how many), and what they are
doing. Ah, well.
Rich Alderson
Rich Alderson
> :-)
Depends on whether they make the pixels sparkle on his monitor or not, no?
jmfb...@aol.com
Rich Alderson <ne...@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
>hel...@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply)
writes:
>
>> In article <T_Nwf.118704$PD2....@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Alan
>> Greig <grei...@netscape.net> writes:
>
>>> The site includes scintillating photos of PDP computers -
>>> some of which have their motherboards and backplanes exposed. In
>>> addition, the site has some racy restoration stories and allows you to
>>> "log-in" to a pair of PDPs that have been brought back to life.
>
>> Aren't porn sites off-topic for this newsgroup? In some countries,
>> logging in to something with an exposed backplane, or even telling a
>> racy story about it, is illegal.
>
>> :-)
>
>> Also, surely that should be "titillating" not "scintillating".
>
>Depends on whether they make the pixels sparkle on his monitor or not, no?
Not his monitor; his TTY.
/BAH
Bob Supnik
/Bob Supnik
hea...@aracnet.com
> PDP-7 - unit at BACK; not considered restorable. There was a nearly
> running PDP-7 at U/Oslo, nothing has been heard about it for serveral
> years; and rumors of one in Oregon
Argh! I need to go through my email archives. I should have a digital
photo of the one in Oregon. I've been so busy the last few years that I'd
actually forgotten about it. I was trying to obtain it at one point. IIRC,
the system has (at least I hope it's still around) doc's, software, and
spares.
Zane
Dave Conroy
realize I might have the PostScript for them as well.
Dave Conroy
the letters that were sent to the board and assembly houses. I also
have the source for the OSF PALCODE, the source for a serial ROM I was
working on a long time after the project (based on one for an EV5/EV6
machine I was designing at the time), and the source for some
console-like things, but I don't seem to have the source for the serial
ROM we actually used nor the console ROM we actually used. Or at least
I don't have them in the obvious place.
I put some interesting bits of this on the web.
http://homepage.mac.com/dgcx
Al, do you want a snapshot of everything for bitsavers?
Al Kossow
> Al, do you want a snapshot of everything for bitsavers?
>
probably would be a good idea.
Bjarni Juliusson
> PDP-12 - running unit at RCS, two at CS not functional
The Update computer club at Uppsala University, Sweden, has a working
PDP-12 on display in its terminal room. Also of varying workingness an
8, two 10s, several 11s, all in storage except one 11/70 in the machine
room sometimes online.
Bjarni
Larry Kilgallen
> The links don't work because they make gratuitous use of javascript
> instead of a simple <a href statement.
>
> And the front page has over 28 HTML errors. Obviously designed by a
> microsoft person/software.
Obviously thrown together rather than designed.
Bob Koehler
> The author also seems a bit confused about what PDP
> means.
The author may have read about them, but has probably never actually
seen a Purple Data Processor.