51–59 of 59 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Internet (mostly), the C language, the Unix Operating System were all developed and deployed on PDPs. The BASIC language /and/ an 8080 emulator was developed on a PDP in order to deploy to the Altair. I would argue that Intel was so highly influenced by Datapoint due to sheer proximity and early inexperience in the field.
BASIC was developed on GE mainframes.
I'd suggest the Datapoint 2200 as the most influential minicomputer of all time since half of you are using an instruction set based on it and it is largely responsible for the creation of the microprocessor. Now mostly forgotten, the Datapoint 2200 was a programmable desktop computer introduced in 1970. It had a processor built from TTL chips, along with shift-register memory from Intel. Datapoint discussed with Int…
I’m not quite old enough to have grown up with the PDP-11. They were gone from university (or at least the parts I had access to) by the time I arrived. But I did see exactly one in the wild. In 1997-1998, I was working for a small company in Atlanta who did tape backup systems. At a client in maybe Knoxville (?), a hospital had a PDP-11/70 live in their machine room. Amusingly, right next to racks of then super-fanc…
To see all that and still be programming now is one very lucky journey.
Been a programmer ever since, me.
I had a PDP-11, in the form of the Heathkit H-11. I loved that computer. Like a fool, I sold it for $25. There's a picture of it on my X profile. The -11 had an instruction set that fit on one page.
After joining, however, I ran into one astonishing fact. DEC, then a hardware manufacturer, fully supported its own operating systems (RSX-11, VMS, and the like), but for Unix — a licensed product of Bell Labs (AT&T) — it offered no official service or technical support whatsoever. (It would be added to the official service menu in later years, but in 1980 it was out of scope.) I had joined a manufacturer in order to make Unix my work, only to find that the manufacturer did not support Unix — a historical gap that left me bewildered at the time.
"PDP-11 with UNIX opened the floodgates for inexpensive interactive computing, which then led to an explosion of office productivity. " Well before we get too misty eyed: "inexpensive" needs looking at "for inexpensive interactive computing". I'm not old (55) enough to have really got to grips with a PDP11. I do still own (yes: present tense) a C64 from 1986. The C64 was bought by my dad via the NAAFI in West Germany…
> The graphics card (ISA) had a whopping 512 bytes of RAM. I think you are missing a "kilo" there...
I had a PDP-11, in the form of the Heathkit H-11. I loved that computer. Like a fool, I sold it for $25. There's a picture of it on my X profile. The -11 had an instruction set that fit on one page.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 6809 (and its clone the 6502) would also be strong contendors. And if Motorola were 6 months faster with the successor 68000 compared to Intels 8086, the IBM PC would be 68000 based and Intel would today be known as a memory chip company. We’d be big endian with no legacy in 2026 of segmented memory architecture in mainstream processors. And with big 3 companies using 68000 (IBM, Apple and C=), we definately woul…
While I’m on alternative histories, if Jack Tramiel didn’t piss off Chuck Peddle, it would be MOS/C= in Intels pisition today.