15 Jan
2003
15 Jan
'03
4:52 a.m.
How many of them are there in existence?
Quite a lot. It is a very cool computer for a hacker - a classic mini
with all sorts of bells and whistles (in the case of the earlier LINC-8,
literally). Guys kept them. At RCS a while back, we figured there are 20
or 25 known examples left. Since then, a few more have popped up. This is
a much better than average survival rate.
Quite a few PDP-12s are in the hands of relatively quiet collectors. For
example, one man that came to RCS used to work on -12s for a living, and
has four of them (three are blue faced Clinical-12s). He knew his PDP-12s
inside and out - literally. He was more or less touch typing the switch
register (at great speed) on our machine, putting it thru all sorts of
tests. He even could base a machine's age on the font used on the
front panel. Amazing.
If anyone wants to send me info, I'll volunteer to
collect and put it
up on my website (I won't put email addresses or other incriminating
evidence unless you want me to :-)).
Well, it is no secret that RCS has three PDP-12s, one of which is a fancy
"super" 12, and a LINC-8. Two of the -12s actually belong to members -
only the LINC-8 and one PDP-12 are "corporate". I have a LINC-8 as
well (which was to be traded - not sure now), but it is fairly gutted.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org