first Classics (WAS Apollo DN systems)

My first thought its that the 'ideal first classic' depends very much on what you're interested in. OK, I am the exception, being primarily a hardware person, so my interest is in CPUs built from simple-ish logic chips (the 74x181 being about the most complicated device I like to see in a CPU :-)). My second thought is that the 'ideal first classic' is the one you're offered. Most of us don't have the luxury of being able to pick any classic computer, we restore the machine we can get our grubby little hands on :-) This can lead to some interesting 'problems'. The first minicomputer I got -- in fact the first machine I had without a single-chip CPU was a Philips P850. A machine that few people have ever heard of, let alone know anything about. I was very much on my own with the machine and the technical manual.... And the first PDP11 I got was not one I'd necessarily recomend for a beginner. It was a PDP11/45. A great machine, but very complicated (over 1000 chips in the CPU IIRC). Anf this time I didn't even have a complete machine. I had to wire-wrap an MUD backplane before I even knew what MUD was. I think that machine I'd go for as a 'first classic' would be one of the following : PDP11/10 -- a simple PDP11, CPU built from TTL, but not that much of it, with a real front panel PERQ (any classic PERQ) -- again a CPU built from TTL, but this time a workstation. Plenty of doucmetnation out there, so you should get it working HP9830 -- Very much the forerunner of the home micro, this machine has BASIC in ROM, so it's not going to be hard to get used to. But the CPU is a bit-serial one built from 80 simple chips, there are schematics, etc out there. -tony