What is Digg?19 Comments
- ncdave101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh man, I wonder if they have decwar on the 2065? :-)
In any event, there are emulators and pre-build disk images available for those who don't want to fiddle with getting an account (I've used simh http://simh.trailing-edge.com/)
-- Dave - lacanadio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1'72 is too early for TOPS-20...try '76 to its demise announcement in '84 or so (the announcement also signalled the end of the 36 bit line at DEC). Ironically, the -36 bit line was killed by one of its initial architects as DEC coalesced its efforts around the VAX (and hastened its demise by essentially ignoring the personal computing and UNIX workstation upsurge). TENEX was the precursor to TOPS-20 and lived in the early 70's. BBN built a pager to enable virtual memory on the KA-10 (the first -10 36 bit machine...the PDP-6 was really the progenitor of the line). In fact, at one time the majority of hosts on the ARPANet and Internet ran on 36 bit hardware. I happened to work on the KA that had BBN pager #1. The KL line (-10 and -20) had PDP-11/34's as frontends for the RS-232 lines, among other things.
XKL.com did the TOAD-1. Trivia: who founded XKL and why? Hint: the founder previously founded one of the current gorillas in the tech space. Name two other companies that did 36 bit clones. For extra credit, one of those two company's names was intimately coupled with the documentation for the DECsystem-20. In what way? As for DECwar...one of the luminaries in the 36 bit world (this person was a luminary in the academic computing world as well) was featured playing same in an issue of Rolling Stone. Who was that (unmasked) man? Speaking of Rolling Stone, the magazine had a feature story by Steven Levy that centered around the academic computing facility that was pioneered by this luminary. What facility was it and why was it important? Hint: it wasn't at an East Coast University. And finally, if you use a GUI, one of the devices that you likely manipulate every time you do so had its beginnings on TENEX/TOPS-20. What pioneering software project spawned it? Extra credit: the computing world was "wowed" by a demonstration of this project at a trade show/technical conference. What event and when?
Many of the computing innovations that are in use today were made commercially viable by the 36 bit line and things that spawned it (Multics comes to mind). Some of the early movie graphics imaging work and computer music research was done on the 36 bit platform, as an example.
Ah nostalgia... - ThunderChicken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sweeet
- abruton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow! I used to work with a PDP-11 that we had to start up once a year! using punch cards, followed by a paper tape and then 12' floppy disks and then finally the hard drives!
- mackay101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The first computer I ever used was a PDP-8. BTW, the 8 stands for "8 kb" -- feel the power!
- dasvoldus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Very interesting, i'll be coding
dugg - Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Maybe I should dig out my VT-220.. (I think I've got a 110 too)
- daehrednud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's a real old computer created by Digital Equipment Corp. It's the precursor to the VAX.
- JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wow..awesome.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Really sweet!
- udubnate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0gotta make room for those seahawk trophies
- datagod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0We used a PDP-11 back in the early eighties in High School. The cursor keys were all in the same row, so it was fun to pop them off and put them back in the wrong order. Man did the principle ever get pissed at us!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Absolutely good digg.
- lepton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool. I used to live on a DEC-20 in the 70s. TOPS-20 was the best OS around at the time, was very sad to see it go.
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My grandmother still owns a PDP (I don't remember which). I wonder if it still runs...
- cmirza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I love the styling of the old DEC and IBM microcomputers. Someone should make retro styled PC cases based on them.
- Sizzor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Wow. Like a time machine, that brings me back to using a PDP-11 and Digital Teletype. Dugg.
http://www.sizzor.net. - Psykus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Hahaha, as this was loading, I was so sure it would be a PSP programming tutorial, and someone didn't proofread their submission, at all.
- phool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0what is this, lol
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