The gentlemen who sold me the classic PDP-8 recently
told me that he had worked in the early 70's at an
outfit called Varisystems. They made dedicated
typesetting systems, one of which he had installed to
replace the PDP-8. He showed me a few bits and pieces
that he had saved, including a wire-wrapped TTL CPU, a
core stack, and a removable (technician-only)
diagnostic panel. From the panel, I concluded that it
was most likely a single accumulator machine. Has
anyone else seen one of these machines or know any
more about them?
There was also an auction on eBay recently of some
spare parts for a Compugraphics typesetter that
indicated that it too was based on a proprietary CPU.
The machine in question was from the late 60's. I had
never heard of them until the 80's, when they were
building systems around the PERQ (!!) and funding some
development work at CMU.
--Bill