🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <34...@tahoe.unr.edu>, ma...@tahoe.unr.edu (Vampire In The Sun) writes:
> In article <129...@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> linden@sun.UUCP (Peter van der Linden) writes:
>>The PDP-8 was a peculiar system.  I first programmed one in 1977,
>>and it was obsolete even then.   It has a 12-bit word length,
>>leading to an astonishing 4K of memory.   This can be extended by
>>bank switching to 12K or even more.
> 
>> [..]
> 
> On a somewhat related note, the DECMate I (and II and III, I think)
> word processors, which DEC brought out in the early 80's, ran on a PDP-8
> microprocessor.
> 

Most of what I had to say abt PDP-8's and DECmates has already been covered.
The DECmate series uses the Harris 6100 microprocessors (I use present
tense because I happen to like my DECmate II very much).

My first encounter with a PDP-8 was in 1981. The machine in question was
a PDP-8/e with 32KW running about 6 users under an operating system called
ETOS. ETOS gave each user a virtual PDP-8 that looked to all the world
like it was running OS/8.

I discovered that 12 users was about the limit for the machine. If you
managed to log in the 13th user, the 8 would spend all of its time in
the idle loop and never do any actual real work.

There's a good 8 story that my roommate has told me. One day, the 
multi-user PDP-8 was running very slowly. My roommate complained to the
system manager who, WHILE THE MACHINE WAS RUNNING, inserted a pair of
non-insulated metal scissors between two boards and snipped a wire
connecting them. The machine thereafter ran at its normal speed.

Perhaps I should mention that the PDP-8 was the second DEC machine
I ever used. The first was a VAX 11/780. Until only a few years ago,
I despised the 8. Since then I have "seen the light", and now own
two of them. It's really a very interesting architecture.

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Roger Ivie

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