LINC-8

[Bob Smith]

Charles Lasner.

On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 8:47 AM Noel Chiappa via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>     > From: Bob Smith <bobsmithofd at gmail.com>
>
>     > saw a comment that this belonged to CJL.
>
> Chris Lindblad? Sorry, I'm drawing a blank on someone with those initials who
> is connected with the LINC.
>
>
>     > From: Jon Elson
>
>     > Wow, those were fairly rare back when, and now there may only be a
>     > couple in existence.
>
> Yeah, that's why I was hoping that someone connected to this community would
> get it, so we don't lose track of this rare artifact.
>
> I'd buy it, but i) it's not a PDP-11, and fails my 'PDP-11's only' test
> (intended to put a strict limit on the amount of junk I accumulate), and ii) I
> already have a whole bunch of PDP-11 gear I have yet to get to. :-( There's no
> way I would ever get to it.
>
>     > Two complete CPUs, capable of running at the same time in shared memory
>     > (I think).
>
> The documentation (1967 Small Computer Handbook) is unclear. It is clear that
> the general mode of operation was for only one CPU at a time to be running,
> but that appears to be to simplify programming (although it does say that "In
> the PDP-8 mode, the LINC subsystem is disabled"). The memory is indeed shared;
> it's on the PDP-8, and the LINC gains access via the standard PDP-8 'data
> break' (i.e. DMA) mechanism.
>
>        Noel
>
>
>