8 Jan
2023
8 Jan
'23
7:50 p.m.
I got the 8L pretty cheap on eBay a few years back after it had been stripped for parts so
it’s been a long restoration project this is why I’m so attached to it. Now that I’ve
learnt that for the L I won’t be running anything other than paper tape I’m ok with that
as I do like the limitations. I think I’ll stop the search to add mass storage to the 8
and focus 100% on the data general systems which I prefer over Dec as then I don’t have to
deal with many many flip chip cards
On 8 Jan 2023, at 19:45, Ethan Dicks via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 8, 2023 at 6:40 AM jos via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Indeed. I have had a PDP-8/L since I was in High School (eons ago).
I have never come up with mass storage for mine and it's long been a
goal to be able to do more than paper tape programs on it. Dry so
far.
Posibus storage devices were, IME, less common than Negibus devices
(which would then require a DW08 and by the time you bought all of
that, why didn't you get a PDP-8-i in the first place? (especially
since you were memory-limited on the -8/L)
On
08.01.23 01:51, jake utley via cctalk wrote:
Hello everyone I’m a young collector (18) of 60s and 70s minicomputers and micros. I have
been restoring a PDP-8L and would love to find ether a Diablo series 30 or Dec RK03
removable cartridge drive to go with this system.
Is it even possible to add a diskdrive to a PDP8/L ? My 1970 "Small computer
handbook" only mentions TU55/TC01 and DF32 as mass-storage options for the 8/L. Both
are essentially unobtainable.
Maybe sell the 8/L and get yourself an 8/E or /F
? Much more flexible.
I do get wanting to max out an 8/L. It was my first and I'd love to
get it doing more things, and it's really cool that you can easily see
what's happening at the gate level (possible but less convenient with
an Omnibus machine), but there's only so much you can do with _any_ 4K
PDP-8, and memory expansion boxes for the 8/L may be rarer than
Posibus storage devices. It's a lot easier to bring an Omnibus
machine up to 32K and there are lots of vintage storage options.
Recreating these things with modern components is always a
possibility, of course, but I've only ever seen a couple of one-off
devices ever come out (like a Posibus DF32D emulator implemented in
TTL that happens to need a now-hard-to-find 128Kx16 NVRAM)
Personally I'd love to see some Posibus devices get recreated but
after this long, I'm totally willing to see if I could get SerialDisk
working with an add-on serial port on an -8/L or unexpanded -8/i.
My own (perpetual) goal is to run OS/8 on a pre-Omnibus machine.
Haven't pulled all the resources together for that yet.
-ethan