[GreenKeys] Happy birthday, PDP-8!

[Richard Knoppow]

    Well, my introduction to computers was not much later. It was 
the Hewlett-Packard small main frame meant to compete with the 
PDP-8 or maybe it was the PDP-11. It rand on Hewlett-Packard 
Basic. It used an ASR-33 as the terminal although I think the one 
in our shop used a KSR-33 with separate tape punch and reader in 
the rack. I taught myself to program it using this machine. It 
had 32 _kb_ of memory. Could be expanded to 64 Kb with a second 
rack. Had flashing lights and toggle switches on the front to 
wake it up and tell it where the tape reader was. -hp- got into 
making them because it wanted something better than the PDP for 
automated measurement systems.
    Teletype machines are really sort of elementary computers, 
converting serial to parallel and then to analog.
    Unfortunately the computer "expert" in our facility was a 
psychopathic bully so I had to learn whatever I knew on my own.

On 3/21/2018 2:48 PM, Paul Heller wrote:
> I hate controversy, but much as I like the PDP-8  I really do believe it’s not appropriate for this board. (Gil did ask us to self regulate...). Just one man’s opinion.
> 
> And yes, I’ll be shutting off the autostart feed again now for a bit just in case.
> 
> Paul
> W2TTY
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mar 21, 2018, at 5:40 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>>
>> OT, but of interest to a few people here...  And just send me the bill
>> for the paper, OK?
>>
>> The venerable PDP-8 was introduced in 1965 today (or tomorrow if you're on the wrong side of the date line).  It was the first computer I ever used, back around 1970 (I think I'd just left school and was checking out the local University's computer department, and played with BASIC and FOCAL).
>>

-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL