Retrochallenge, 2005

On 6/14/05, jim stephens <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> wrote: And the 680/i for the PDP-10 was -8/i based... but I was thinking more about end-user telecommunication stuff rather than embedded "under the sheets" network infrastructure. One issue, I think, is that most PDP-8s had a single serial port - the console port. You could _add_ serial ports, but except for EDUsystems (single-CPU BASIC timesharing systems), in my experience, PDP-8 serial ports were expensive enough (prior to, say DECmates) that machines tended not to have anything past the console. If DEC had added a second serial port on the DKC8AA, things might have been different, but they chose to load the "standard" PDP-8/a I/O board with one console, 12-bits in, 12-bits out (which could be used as a printer port), and programmer's front-panel interface. Since most -8/a boxes came with that board, it would have set the standard higher. To tie this back into the consumer experience, it was a lightly-loaded -8/a that David Ahl tried to push within DEC as the answer to the surge in demand for hobbyist computers in the 1970s. If I remember his proposal, an entry-level machine might have a smaller chassis (4 slots? 8 slots?), a similarly scaled PSU, a 4K SRAM board, the KK8A processor, and some sort of console, perhaps the DKC8AA, perhaps something with fewer features at a lower end-user price. The starting price would have easily been right at home with what Altairs and Imsais were sitting at, with a much higher production quality, and a *wad* of existing 12-bit programs. I'm not saying that the PDP-8 would have taken over the home hobby world, but the right system at that time would have been quite popular. With the IM6100 and IM6120 microprocessors following the KK8A close behind, things might have been interesting. -ethan