DEC handbooks at LA estate sale

[js at cimmeri.com]

On 3/1/2015 7:43 PM, Ian S. King wrote:
> Well, learn something new every day….  :-)  Thanks for enlightening me.
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 1:21 AM, Eric Smith<spacewar at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> On Feb 27, 2015 12:57 PM, "Ian S. King"<isking at uw.edu>  wrote:
>>>   I believe the PDP-1 used a Flexowriter.  I suspect DEC would have used an IBM product over Ken Olsen's dead body.  :-)
>> The PDP-1 console typewriter is an IBM (model B IIRC) modified by Soroban
>> Engineering for use as an I/O device. It was horribly unreliable, so DEC
>> didn't use the same for the PDP-4 and later. CHM has copies of some angry
>> correspondence between DEC and Soroban.
>>
>> Some PDP-1 sites used Flexowriters for offline operations, and it was
>> possible to add them as additional I/O, but they weren't compatible with
>> the PDP-1 console interface.
>>
>> I think some other PDP-1 I/O options were rebadged IBM equipment with
>> DEC-built interfaces, but I don't have details of the specific models. DEC
>> didn't have the resources to build all the equipment, and just engineering
>> and building all of the interfaces to the OEM devices nearly bankrupted
>> them. They optimistically put a wide variety of not-yet-designed I/O
>> equipment on the price list, and the salesmen sold *all* of them to
>> Lawrence-Livermore. Apparently some of those DEC options only ever sold one
>> or two units for the entire line of 18-bit machines.
>>
>

What's even more aggravating to read 
than something not bottom posted?   
Something not bottom posted to a chain 
that already begun in the bottom posted 
format.

- J.