LINC-8

[Noel Chiappa]

    > 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