Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]


Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #214308

A naked PDP11

From gareth evans <headstone255@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups alt.folklore.computers
Subject A naked PDP11
Date 2020-09-16 13:11 +0100
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <rjsvdd$jji$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)

Show all headers | View raw


I may have mentioned before (briefly, in passing :-)  ) that I
cut my teeth on a naked PDP11 in assembler and machine code during
a summer undergraduate internship in 1971. (45 minutes to load the
assembler via the 10cps tape reader of the Teletype  :-(  )

It is salutary to muse that this is now 49 years ago, and that
49 years previously it was 1922, before the days of regular
radio broadcasting when the man-on-the-Clapham-Omnibus
(John Doe to the Yanks) knew nothing of electronics*****, and
certainly a decade and a half before electronic computers
were even considered. For most people (here in Brit, at least)
there were no telephones or motor cars.

What technical advances were made during that previous 49 years!

Perhaps even greater advances have been made in computing in the
next 49 years up till now such that those of us who were extant
in 1971 have now been described, somewhat unkindly, as dinosaurs.

Not during that internship, but in subsequent employment in the
same place, when the first Decwriter was delivered, the pallet
upon which it was attached was not some
conglomeration of roughly cut timbers but was a two sheets of
high quality 3/4" thick plywood. The pallet was scrapped and was
mde by me and the wife into our first bookcase which we still
have to this day.

I did have cause to panic on one occasion when the covers were off,
and I dropped a screwdriver onto the wire-wrapped backplane of the
DecTapes when power was applied. On another occasion, I was in the
processor box with a small screwdriver to adjust the clock that
drove the Teletype serial port.

***** I did read somewhere that the seminal background work
for the Field Effect Transistor happened in about 1910.

Is this post a wind-up?  Only to help your day go like clockwork! :-)

Back to alt.folklore.computers | Previous | NextNext in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread


Thread

A naked PDP11 gareth evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-09-16 13:11 +0100
  Re: A naked PDP11 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-09-16 15:06 +0000
    Re: A naked PDP11 JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-09-16 11:28 -0500
    Re: A naked PDP11 Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-09-16 17:42 +0000
  Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-09-16 16:24 +0000
    Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-16 13:49 -0400
      Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-09-16 22:20 +0100
      Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2020-09-16 20:29 -0400
      Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-09-17 01:01 +0000
        Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-16 21:56 -0400
    Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-09-16 11:12 -0700
    Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> - 2020-09-17 04:15 +0000
      Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-09-17 08:14 +0100
      Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-09-17 11:29 -0700
        Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-09-17 13:49 -0500
        Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-18 11:48 -0700
          Re: A naked PDP11 and not much new since J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-18 17:08 -0400
  Re: A naked PDP11 Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2020-09-16 20:18 -0400
    Re: A naked PDP11 Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-09-17 07:11 +0100
      Re: A naked PDP11 Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2020-09-17 11:26 -0400
      Re: A naked PDP11 Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> - 2020-09-17 23:32 -0400
        Re: A naked PDP11 JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-09-18 10:04 -0500
          Re: A naked PDP11 maus <maus@dmaus.org> - 2020-09-18 16:44 +0000
          OT: sawing machines Re: A naked PDP11 Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-09-18 11:22 -0700
            Re: OT: sawing machines Re: A naked PDP11 JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-09-18 15:37 -0500
          Re: A naked PDP11 Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-09-19 02:24 -0300
        Re: A naked PDP11 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-18 11:49 -0700
        Re: A naked PDP11 David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> - 2020-10-06 00:21 +0000
          Re: A naked PDP11 Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-10-06 10:27 -0700
            Re: A naked PDP11 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-10-06 17:45 +0000
              Re: A naked PDP11 Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-10-07 15:48 -0700
                Re: A naked PDP11 Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-10-08 08:23 +0000
          Re: A naked PDP11 Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-10-07 15:45 -0700
    Re: A naked PDP11 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-18 11:39 -0700
      Re: A naked PDP11 JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-09-18 15:41 -0500
      Re: A naked PDP11 J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-18 17:12 -0400
        Re: A naked PDP11 Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-09-18 22:41 +0100
        Re: A naked PDP11 Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-09-18 16:43 -0700
        Re: A naked PDP11 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-19 11:50 -0700
          Re: A naked PDP11 maus <maus@dmaus.org> - 2020-09-19 19:06 +0000
          Re: A naked PDP11 J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-19 15:30 -0400
          Re: A naked PDP11 JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-09-20 10:47 -0500
    Re: A naked PDP11 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-18 11:41 -0700
  Re: A naked PDP11 Robin Vowels <robin.vowels@gmail.com> - 2020-09-22 10:07 -0700
    Re: A naked PDP11 Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-09-22 15:39 -0700

csiph-web