29 Mar
2010
29 Mar
'10
1:14 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 12:52 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Using vintage computers in the classroom
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
True, true.
We're still in our first steps, and
haven't made a lot of use of
vintage systems in the classroom (although I do
like to bring along my
PDP-8/f, just to demonstrate what a desktop computer looked like in
1970).
If you have a moving van, you could bring a DataSystem 310 (PDP-8/a
w/RX02) to show that in 1978, a desktop computer was so-called because
it came with its own desk. ;-)
The Straight-8, the -8/S, the -8/L and the -8/e all
had "desktop"
configurations as well as rackable configurations (i.e. - factory-made
desktop covers (black metal except for the Straight-8, which was
smoked plexi), but I think the other models of PDP-8 only had rackable
packages (not that you couldn't leave a PDP-8 out on a desk, but in
terms of aesthetics, vents, mounting ears, etc., they weren't "desk
pretty").
Still - the -8/f is more portable than an -8/e and does make the point
that I imagine you are trying to make (though anything more than the
CPU enclosure and a TTY starts to stretch the definition of "desktop",
especially if you start stacking rackable boxes for external disk or
DECtape or papertape - those weren't in desktop enclosures in 1970
AFAIK).
-ethan
You're right, and the point of using an 8/f is that I walk into the room with it on a
little luggage cart and lift it onto the desk, plug it in and fire it up. Of course,
without a terminal of some sort as well as mass storage (minimally a paper tape reader),
it's not much use. But all of that is a good starting point to talk about how
computers became more and more accessible to the individual across that era. There was
nothing like it ten years earlier. -- Ian