Possible flamebait follows. Read at own risk.
"Carl Friedberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (5) PDP-8 (12 bit?). I don't remember much of anything about that, but
> it morphed into a word processor :-)
You're right, it was 12-bit. About 10 years ago we were working in Spain
for a year. We received a letter containing a couple pictures of a friend
at work standing in front of a computer. Old-style. High cabinet, and rows
of toggle switches and blinking lights. I thought it was an old PDP-11
until I counted the toggles and lights. I asked. Yes, it was a _working_
PDP-8. I won't tell you who the friend works for, but it's not my company.
> (6) PDP-11 (16 bit). This was an awful machine. ...
^^^^^
In the original sense of the word. These days we'd say "awsome." You can
not, to my knowledge, buy a new VAX; they were discontinued a couple years
ago. But you _can_ buy a new PDP-11, at least the processor board:
http://www.mentec-inc.com/
> However, despite requiring the programmer to learn hexadecimal
> notation instead of the much easier octal,
I believe you have misremembered. I'm looking at a PDP-11 programming card
(July 1975) and it's all octal.
> it did catch on, and spawned a whole slew of operating systems: DOS, RT,
RSTS,
> RSX-11D, RSX11M, RSX11M-Plus, among others. Mumps, too.
Don't forget fuzzball, without which we might not have an internet.
Other readers: please don't confuse DOS-11 with MS/DOS. Back then, everyone
had a DOS, and IBM had two: the mainframe one and PC/DOS. In all cases I am
aware of, it stands for Disk Operating System. With their characteristic
blend of humility and creativeness, IBM even had one called OS. Guess what
_that_ stood for.
> How would you describe TKB? As a disk exerciser? The first manufacturer
> supplied computer virus?
Question: Why is the VMS image activator so slow?
Answer: Same reason TKB is.
And there's more than a little truth in that.
Are us ancient flatuses allowed to have this much fun?
Tom Wyant
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