14 Sep
2012
14 Sep
'12
7:23 p.m.
I've been wanting a PDP for some time now. I don't really have any
particular model in mind, but my budget has an upper limit of about
$1000. Any recommendations on where to look and what to look for?
'PDP' = 'Programmed Data Processor' and covers at least a dozen families
of machines, with wildly different characteristics.
The most common families are ,I think the PDP8 and the PDP11. The former
is a 12 bit machine, the latter a 16 bit one.
AS fro what to dlook for, theis depends -- a lot -- on why you want it.
All I can say is what _I_ would look for, for what _I_ want. Since I am
very much a hardware person, I would look for an older machine with the
PCU built form mall-ish ICs (TTL, bipolar PROMs), For a PDP11, that means
a Unibus machine, and not all of thsoe are suitable.
My advice is to think what's important to you (things like blinkenlight
panel, TTL-built CPU, ability to run a particualr OS, what sort of
pewripherals do you want (do you want demountable hard drives or
winchesters, for exemple). They you can decide on aome suitable machiens.
and then you can work out how to pay for them ;-)
-tony