On May 15, 2019, at 7:25 PM, Jules Richardson via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hey all,
I bumped into someone who has some early (mid 1970 on some of the photos I've seen)
PDP-11 bits - front panel and a handful of boards (the backplane, PSU, rack, peripherals
etc. are long gone). The front panel's branded as "Industrial 11" though,
which isn't something I've seen or heard of before.
Address bus is 16 bits wide, and aside from the branding, the style appears to be the
same as an 11/05 or 11/10. Were there any differences to the system internally though, or
in the standard set of boards fitted, or was the "industrial" aspect purely a
marketing exercise?
There was a "Rugged 11", a PDP11/20 variant with actual packaging changes, for
example sturdier switches on the console panel. I've only seen photos of that one.
The "Industrial" thing you mentioned sounds more like a "product line"
variant. DEC had a lot of groups focused on particular business categories, which it
called "product lines". That meant a marketing and sales focus on those
businesses, but might also include specialized software products, hardware bundles, or the
like.
For example, the newspaper product line created Typeset-11 software, the VT20, 61t, and 71
terminals, custom interfaces to phototypesetters, and software/hardware/support bundled
packages for turnkey systems to sell to newspapers. The telephone product group created
Assist-11 directory assistance database software, and later was the original vehicle for
DEC to deliver Unix to customers who wanted it. Educational products group created PDP-11
systems with software bundles and a different paint job (light/dark blue rather than
red/maroon).
I have a plastic ruler made as a marketing tchotchke by the industrial products group.
They may well have done more substantive stuff, like industrial control interfaces or
product bundles focused on those customers.
paul