PDP/11 chassis door swings shut ...

In message , Andy Burns writes

In 1970 I remember playing Star-trek using a PDP/9 and TeleType 43 (alias gatling-gun) printer, terrific.

I tell a lie, I think it must've been a type 33 -

Andy Burns wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:

Here's a pretty good obit from El Reg:

Many of the comments mirror my own experiences...

DOH -

All I saw was the usual Reg crap. "DEC's PC was called the Rainbow" (It wasn't - they soon had an actual PC clone too)

"NT is really VMS because of Dave Cutler" Only in the pre-release blurbs. Reality was rather different. Same as for the HAL.

"Win2000 onwards were ok , but NT 3.11 and 3.5* were lame dogs and should never have been released. " What was "NT 3.11" ? and although the NT desktop was antiquated, the NT 3.* OS was a good server platform - at least until the kernel protection was busted to make graphics performance quicker, just in time for CPU-based graphics boards to make this unnecessary.

"With an almost-orthogonal instruction set it would these days be a RISC machine" is someone who doesn't understand what either CISC or RISC are. Mind you, nor did most of DEC, by the time the Alpha arrived and they still tried to treat it like the next VAX.

Andy Dingley wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@f2g2000yqf.googlegroups.com :

You're right of course. Much cr@p in there. But try a few from the one posted Tuesday 8th February 2011 15:05 GMT

I spent a hefty chunk of my career working on software running on assorted DEC kit including PDP-8, 11/40, 11/34, 11/23, 11/73, 11/70, Pro 350, VAX-11/730, 750, 785, MicroVAX, VAXstation, AlphaStation. I have particularly fond memories of the PDP-11 instruction set and MACRO-11 under RSX-11M [Aside: which is where I first came across the name DN Cutler when reading the system listings] especially when I had to compare it with the Intel x86 instruction set some years later :(

Kind regards

are plenty of PDP/VAX/Alpha aficionados here anyway ...

Sure there are, although I heard the news about 24 hours earlier! I have three VAXes, two PDP-11s and a replica PDP-8 in the house...

Final Score on the BBC I think used a Creed 75, this would have been

I had one for a while, with tape reader and punch, gear box and would go up to 75 baud. Also had a Teletype model 28, 6S5M tape reader and still have a Creed 444.

One VAXserver 3300 here and I chucked out an alphaSERVER 2100 for eating too much space a few years back, I have 'dibs' on an alphaServer 1000 and DS20e plus BA35x storageworks pedestals but I still don't have space for them.

Yeah, DEC was on the slide.. ... when they started going away from the H960 cab!;-)

I liked what Ken Olsen said about the PC! "The personal computer will fall flat on its face in business," he said at one point. See! Even then he had the laptop flip-top screen in mind!;-)

Deeply sad.

You might say that today's blades running Linux are direct descendents of the PDPs.

I've heard David Icke say much the same thing.

Definitely a design classic, the 444, along with other telecomms/radio stuff from that time, as featured on TV shows like 'Minder' ,'The Sweeney', 'The Professionals' etc, check out the film 'North Sea Hijack' as well. Do you still use it on air? I've got a 700-series rotary dial phone (two-tone grey, of course!) from the same era, and a WB1400 loudspeaker unit, bought from the Hack Green nuclear bunker museum, I keep meaning to use it with an amplifier on the phone line, when I work out how, will be useful when calling those automated menu systems.

LOL! How true....

In message , brass monkey writes

Just don't, OK ?

And Kent Walton commentating. At the end he'd say: "Have a good week till next week!" and they'd play that staccato introduction to the results programme.

It's a touch worrisome I must admit.