27 Apr
2020
27 Apr
'20
5:47 a.m.
From: Bob Smith <bobsmithofd at gmail.com>
saw a comment that this belonged to CJL.
Chris Lindblad? Sorry, I'm drawing a blank on someone with those initials who
is connected with the LINC.
From: Jon Elson
Wow, those were fairly rare back when, and now there
may only be a
couple in existence.
Yeah, that's why I was hoping that someone connected to this community would
get it, so we don't lose track of this rare artifact.
I'd buy it, but i) it's not a PDP-11, and fails my 'PDP-11's only'
test
(intended to put a strict limit on the amount of junk I accumulate), and ii) I
already have a whole bunch of PDP-11 gear I have yet to get to. :-( There's no
way I would ever get to it.
Two complete CPUs, capable of running at the same time
in shared memory
(I think).
The documentation (1967 Small Computer Handbook) is unclear. It is clear that
the general mode of operation was for only one CPU at a time to be running,
but that appears to be to simplify programming (although it does say that "In
the PDP-8 mode, the LINC subsystem is disabled"). The memory is indeed shared;
it's on the PDP-8, and the LINC gains access via the standard PDP-8 'data
break' (i.e. DMA) mechanism.
Noel