29 Jul
2010
29 Jul
'10
11:18 a.m.
You guys are going to force me to learn something
about DEC gear yet.
Well, maybe :-). Old DEC machines are fun...
:-) Not that I'd mind at all, aside from the fact
that I already have
way too many interests. After considerable Googling I think I did learn
that SPC is the acronym for Small Peripheral Controller. Everyone has
to start somewhere, right? Then I re-read the email above and
I was thrown in at the deep end. I was given a PDP11/45, an MUD memory
board (but no suitable backplane) and the printsets (no user manual, no
instruciton set listing, etc -- and this was before the days of public
access to the Internet). And I managed to sort it all out in the end. It
took me about 6 weeks to get it running a simple program. It's a lot
easier when you can ask on this list :-)
discovered that you said that in the first paragraph!
Arrrgggh. Well,
at least now I might remember that bit of information for a while.
This reminds me of a little saying I saw about a year ago and found
rather humorous. "If you want to be a guru in some area, the first
thing to do is memorize all the holy acronyms." I think there's a fair
amount of truth in that...
There is, indeed. But in gnneral the acronyms are used to speed up
communication (it's a lot easier to type 'PDP11' than 'Programmed Data
Processor Model 11' rather than to conceal information and we'll be happy
to expalin any of them.
-tony