little older and more complex. but my chances of finding one were pretty much slim to none so I then thought about the computers that DIGITAL made. Yes it would be fantastic to own something like a PDP-12 rack (how often do you see a bright green computer these days?) but knowing how my luck is almost never with me I would have to settle with something smaller. That returns me to my chances of finding a PDP. I live in Western Canada and so far it has been hard enough just finding a SPARCstation 1+ so I assume that something like a PDP will be even harder. How common are DEC's these days and where are they usually found and how much do they usually go for if any price at all? PDP-12s are rare. there were very few made and fewer available. Estimates are around a dozen around. More likely candidates and PDP-10 (later models), PDP-11s. You can find PDP-11s easily enough, PDP-8 of the omnibus era are easy to find earlier 8s are much fewer. In the PDP10 realm the later '10s (system 20s) are still findable though there were not all that many made in that family. So the likely candidates in order of most frequently found/bought to least. You can buy or find these fairly cheap ======================================= microVAX (all sorts and easily found) PDP-11 (qbus) very common PDP-11 Unibus PDP-8[E,F,M,a] omnibus VAX 750 and 730s Good luck! ============ VAX (78x series, ) PDP-8 earlier [L, I, and straight] PDP10 (system 20 later models) Everything else is scarce to rare or only a few left on earth. What differentiates them is production volumes. Some the volumes were very small like a PDP-6 where there were something less than 10 made. Allison