PDP-8 hate

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#604

From: lin... Peter van der Linden
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 1989 02:39

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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.

There are three instructions bits, hence 8 basic instructions in
the machine.  Nowadays it would be lauded as a revolutionary RISC
architecture.  It wasn't quite that simple then, e.g. because I/O
(instruction 6) didn't use the address portion of a word, and hence
this was available for further refining or extending the instruction
set.

I used to punch up my editor commands on paper tape, then run them
through with input redirected from the tape reader and output to the
console.  Result, incredible high-speed editing (rather like editing
from a journal file on VAX/VMS).  Amazing what amuses us when we are
young, isn't it?



----------------
Disclaimer: I'm no Jack Kennedy.
Peter van der Linden     lin...@SuN.cOm    (415) 336-6206

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Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!wuarchive!usc!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!adapt!linden
From: lin...@adapt.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: PDP-8 hate
Keywords: pdp-8
Message-ID: <129595@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 24 Dec 89 02:39:35 GMT
Sender: ne...@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: linden@sun.UUCP (Peter van der Linden)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 23
Posted: Sun Dec 24 03:39:35 1989
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