I know exactly what you mean. PDP-11's were a huge part of my professional life: -11/20: the first computer I actually used, in high school -11/45: the computer on which I took my first programming course in the CS Dept (amazingly, my group later traded the next computer for that very computer, years later) -11/40: the first computer that was 'mine', in the sense that I controlled it -11/70: the computer I did a lot of my early Unix learning/work on -11/03: my first packet switch code ran on one of these -11/23: the most widespread machine that my early packet switches ran on -11/73: the timesharing machine at the company that productized my packet switch code I'm very fortunate to now have a lot of PDP-11's in my collection. (Including an /04 and a /34, machines I never used BITD.) I had no contact with PDP-11's for many years, but only a few years ago someone here gave me an -11/84 (if I drove to Wisconsin to get it :-); I stopped off at my in-law's house to overnight on the way back with it, and they later told my wife it was the happiest they'd ever seen me! Noel