No such thing as "the PDP" [was RE: Typesafety versus Worse is Better - was Re: Fwd: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?]

[Eric Smith]

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 2:44 PM, Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> wrote:
> "Dale H. Cook" <radiotest at juno.com> wrote:
>> Speaking of that pioneering machine, does anyone know if there are
>> any plans by the CHM to try to make the MIT engineering prototype
>> operable? I last saw it in use at MIT about 45 years ago, when it was
>> housed adjacent to the TX-0 and the two were being used for speech
>> synthesis experiments. From what I understand the operable machine on
>> display at the CHM is a later C production version.

> There are no current plans to restore another PDP-1 at the CHM...

Nor is it likely that restoration of the prototype will ever be done.
Restoring something that is mostly documented was a big challenge.
Restoring something that is mostly undocumented is close enough to
impossible that I doubt that those of us who were on the PDP-1
restoration team would ever seriously consider it, nor would anyone
else sensible.

CHM has a second production PDP-1 that would be a much better
restoration candidate if the world needed a second operational PDP-1,
which it doesn't.