30 Mar
2020
30 Mar
'20
12:02 p.m.
On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 1:48 PM Brendan McNeill via cctech <
cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Here in NZ and around the world many of us are in
lockdown and spending
more time on our computers, if that were possible. I have just completed
the restoration of a PDP-8 Straight 8 which I believe is the only one in
New Zealand. You can view the restoration story and find appropriate
resources here: https://pdp-8.nz <https://pdp-8.nz/>
Very nicely done, and an excellent write-up. That core memory repair was
amazing. It's interesting to read about a PDP-8 with such a high failure
rate -- I've personally worked on two straight-8 systems (one at LCM+L, and
one in my personal collection) where relatively few component failures were
found. I wonder what accounts for the difference -- batches of diodes more
prone to failure, the environment the machines were stored in, or the
number of years of service...
While it plays Chess, it would be great if someone wanted to write (say) a
Prime Number Generator, or some other application and email it to me off
list. I have Focal-69 and can probably source other languages for this
wonderful old machine with 4K of memory.
There's a 4K LISP as well, though it's a pseudo-LISP-1.5 dialect so it's a
bit different.
- Josh
--------------//----------------
brendan at mcneill.co.nz
+64 21 881 883