18 Jun
2013
18 Jun
'13
3:04 a.m.
On 06/17/2013 11:39 PM, William Maddox wrote:
--- On Mon, 6/17/13, steve shumaker <shumaker at
att.net> wrote:
The difference is the PDP-8 predated the nova by more than a few years.
why does a pdp 8/L represent a "nice useless
computer"???
(from a newbie who has yet to score one)...
Indeed. They aren't very
expandable, but even a fully-loaded PDP-8/E is pretty "useless" these days. But
that's not the point. I've often described the 8/L as "the most classic
computing goodness crammed into the smallest package". Only the Nova can compete
with it. Of course, these are aesthetic judgements with much room for disagreement, thus I
may have touched off another discussion of what makes a classic computer
"interesting" or "classic"...
--Bill
From 1967 to 1970 the same machine
from whoever would on every would shrink to about 30%.
For example the 8L fills a 11x19x28 case for a basic machine. The 8E
would be less than 1/4 the same size case for the
more functionality.
As far as an 8l being mostly useless. By current standards a P166 is
useless, anything belove 1ghz is useless yet we
have little boxes with micros that are barely pdp8 performance doing
useful stuff. What defines your comment is
not cpu performance or memory but size and raw power needed to make it go.
Allison