PDP-11/20 vd one that just says pdp 11 what are the date differences?? OEM? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

22 Feb 2016

In a message dated 2/22/2016 5:07:40 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
billdegnan at gmail.com writes:

On Feb  22, 2016 4:39 AM, "Paul Birkel" <pbirkel at gmail.com>  wrote:
...

 Agreed; I neglected to mention that mine also is marked  in that manner!
 Seems like DEC had ramped up to about 15-20  machines/day by  mid-September.
...

 Guess that the front panel  graphics guys "didn't yet get the memo".  Or
 maybe someone was  hedging their bets against an ignominious sales failure in
...
  the  initial front panel production?

 -----Original  Message-----
 From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On  Behalf Of  Christian
...
  Corti
 Sent: Monday, February 22, 2016 4:32  AM
 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
  Subject: RE: PDP-11/20 vd one that just says pdp 11 what are the date
  differences?? OEM?

 On Mon, 22 Feb 2016, Paul Birkel  wrote:
  My PDP-11 is labeled as "S-386" and
dated 9/23/70, which I  guess makes
 it fairly early in the production run (but I do  wonder what the
 initial manufacturing rate was given the relative  riskiness of this
 new architecture).  Anyone have S# and  dates for "plain 11" vs.
 11/20-marked for  comparison? 
 Our PDP-11 is labeled as "S-308", the date is  9/16/70. And I think they
 called it PDP11-20 from the beginning, as  the model number above the serial
...
  number says  "M11-20"

 Christian

I have an original 1969 PDP  11 brochure.  In it there are two PDP 11 model
configurations to  choose from; the 10 and the 20.  For me at least this
throws into  question the whole "...the 10 first came out with the 5
in1972..." story  everyone repeats over and over, unless one must have a
"10" printed on the  console in order to accept a computer model's
existence.  DEC must not  have sold many original 10 models, and/or everyone
who has a 10 does not  realize that's what they have.  But, facts are facts
and the brochure  and price guide I have is what it is.  Hoping some here
will check for  themselves and consider it misleading at least to simply
call the original  PDP-11 a "pdp 11/20 without the nameplate".  In short,
the original  bare-bones pdp11 was the pdp-11 10, the fully-equipped version
was the  pdp-11 20.

Why DEC temporarily dropped it's pdp-11 10 model from the  product line and
...
 from newer price sheets I can't say.   Certainly 
the "10" was gone when DEC rebranded their front nameplates to read
"pdp  11/20".  I believe the 1969
brochure is on bitsavers, or I think my  website has a copy you can 
download.

Bill Degnan
twitter:  billdeg
vintagecomputer.net

I had  heard a rumor the  10  was an oem version!?
does that make any sense Bill?

Ed#