Here's my six cents... I worked for DEC (twice). Better engineering and nicer group of people you would not find again. Rod Smallwood DEC Badge No 45083 -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 10 March 2007 02:26 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Value of a PDP/8? Familiarity - for me, as well as many members of this list, it's a matter of accumulated experience on DEC boxes when they were new or recently retired. Nice start. As I've posted in the past, my start with DEC hardware was a $35 PDP-8/L in 1982 from the Dayton Hamvention. It took me 2 years of fiddling around with it until I ran across a copy of the module list and got it working. From there, it was to a PDP-8/a to which I added an RX8E/RX01 then an RL8A and RL01 and a VT52. Coincident with the PDP-8/a, I was using PDP-11s and VAXen at work, so I was pretty well established as a DEChead between High School and my Freshman year of College. I never got paid to program a PDP-8, but I'm happy I barely made the cutoff to program the PDP-11 for a living (1986-1987). Besides early access to the hardware, I'd say the appeal was how much cooler 12-bits and 16-bits and 32-bits was compared to my little 6502 and 1802 machines were at home. I could write "real" programs on a minicomputer at work or poke around with noddy stuff in BASIC and 6502 assembler at home. No contest. It didn't hurt that while I was learning PDP-11 machine language at work (typing in diagnostics with console ODT emulators), I was also working on Unibus and Qbus hardware. I got to learn all the low-level stuff _and_ get a paycheck for it. I never saw an HP or Data General in the flesh until several years after I was repairing PDP-11 boards and writing programs in MACRO and C. Speaking of C, I learned it on an 11/750 running 4BSD in 1985. A venerable platform if ever there was one (back in the days of "all the world's a VAX"). I learned the One True Brace formatting standard in that environment and retain that style to this day. So... in short - early exposure and access, then the chance to pick up older stuff on the surplus market for cheap or free. When nobody wanted 5MB RL01s, I was buying cheap RL01s. Later it was RL02s, then it was entire MicroVAXen, etc. So much of it was backwards and forwards compatible, I could play with what I could afford at home, then take my results to work and run stuff on really expensive iron ($100K+). Shame it's all so hard to find now. -ethan