PDP-11/20 vd one that just says pdp 11 what are the date differences?? OEM?

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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#