• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
  • From now on we will require that a prefix is set for any items in the sales area. We have created regions and locations for this. We also require that you select a delivery option before posting your listing. This will hopefully help us streamline the things that get listed for sales here and help local people better advertise their items, especially for local only sales. New sales rules are also coming, so stay tuned.

DEC PDP-12 Minicomputer

NeXT

NeXT

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2008
Messages
8,140
Location
Kamloops, BC, Canada
*sigh*
Well I have a pretty good idea that this shout will go to deaf ears because it sits up there with the people wanting a Xerox Alto or a Connection machine, but it doesn't hurt to throw my message in a bottle into the sea of messages in bottles.

I'm willing to go rather far to get hold of a PDP-12 machine. They're big, they're uncommon, yes. The idea here is that if I now have the teletype to talk to it and the pile of LINCtapes to store data from it that just leaves me with just finding the machine to learn with. It would accomplish my goals of getting some sort of PDP-8 compatible machine and the feel of a LINC-8. Unfortunately I have very little money to my name however over the years I have amassed a very large collection of computers and spares.
Just to get the ball rolling I'll offer in exchange ALL of my PDP machines (that's an 11/23 and an 11/84), all my peripherals (tape drives, disk drive and SCSI drives) and my collection of spare boards (SCSI controllers, tape controllers, FPU options, bus converters, SLU cards and a framebuffer). Drop by and I'll even give you my one and only precious 19" rack. In three years of searching I have never found another one around these parts.
If you don't want that, well I got smaller stuff like the Lisa but it's all a bit less interesting. Perhaps you want some thing else? I got laserdiscs galore, Want a DX7? Satellite phones? Get in touch.
 
How many 12's even exist? I hope you find one. I will be inspecting a 12 at the Feb 16th event I am helping organize in Baltimore (see events forum for more details). I will take a lot of pictures.

Do you have the power and space for a pdp12?
B
 
billdeg said:
How many 12's even exist?
Click to expand...

A lot more than you would expect. They were quite popular in medical research.

18 bit DEC machines are much less common.

I would be pretty surprised if anyone would let one go today for less than 5K though, given
how much 8's are selling for.
 
I had to Google up the PDP-12 to see what they looked like. Oh, my, those are pretty. Good luck in your quest for one!
 
Yeah, I know myself that at least twelve exist. Corestore has two, The LCM has two, and the rest float around the web in different configurations and levels of functionality. I've seen more 12's than straight-8's or VAX11 machines. Every so often another one surfaces but their days of appearing at the curb are long gone.
They actually don't consume a lot given what it is. About 800w. Take up the space of a large upright freezer with that absurd rack.

I would be pretty surprised if anyone would let one go today for less than 5K though, given
how much 8's are selling for.
Click to expand...
Hence why I'm giving my shirt away to at least try. I don't hold much hope.
 
After careful deliberation I've decided to put everything on the table.
Macs, PC's, parts, documentation, software random electronics, scooters, beer....If you see I have it and you want it, I'm open to including it in the trade.

Have I totally lost it: No, this is more of a challenge. How hard is it to persuade people into a trade without money? ;)
 
Last edited:
I wish you luck finding a publisher for this documentary. ;-) and I'm with NF6X on that one. :wow:OOooooooooohh......
PDP-12-Update-Uppsala.jpeg
:confused6:

And you know what? No it won't fit in a smaller size picture. j/k (sorry) For what it's worth I checked the old-computers collector trade list and woozgotwat list but needless to say no hits.
 
They are strange machines. They seem to pop up and vanish often enough and they don't have any extreme demand so they are not commonly sought after by other collectors like say, the straight-8 or the 8/e. Usually they seem to be picked up as part of a lot and not a whole lot of dedication goes into getting them running. I've seen several collectors who either started restoring and never finished or ran them until they completely failed before putting them in storage. Only exception is the LCM who have committed to running their machine several days a week, if not non-stop.
Like I said before, the 12 kills two birds and unintentionally gets a third. I get the PDP-8, I get the LINCtape (Every PDP-12 sold with at least one drive so it makes the want for the TU56 redundant) and then you get the functionality of the LINC which only recently became useful as tapes from the machines recently started being archived. I feel quite dumb that I wasn't searching years ago. There's so many features and so many things I wanted in a DEC minicomputer that are in the rack I could replace several machines and save a ton of space.
 
If I wasn't on the opposite edge of the continent from that PDP-12 system on eBay, I would totally steal it from you, NeXT! ;)
 
*sigh*
Well I can't complain now that I've offered everything I own for one.
Unfortunately ebay doesn't accept my shirt as a payment method. ;)
 
Do you have any chance of buying the one on eBay? It looks SO COOL! If it was close to me I'd be REALLY tempted to commit financial suicide with the ol' credit card, but luckily the distance from me is enough to keep me away from it at the moment.

Now, if a VAX 11/780 shows up for sale in southern California, I'm done for.
 
It's in NY state. I'm 5000km away in British Columbia. It's completely impossible without paying at least $2000 to travel out and truck it back. Getting it freighted would be prohibitively expensive. It would be way more feasable (and probably cheaper because vintage computing is a dead hobby up north) if it was almost anywhere on this coast (but then I have to fight you! ;) ). You can transport a PDP-12 with a small car in two trips. One for the components. One for the welded frame rack.
 
Last edited:
Plenty of people will agree with you. But the two people who do not agree with you will determine how much that PDP-12 sells for. ;)
 
Anyone who buys this will spend x $ per year just to store and operate it. This is a committment purchase. Even if you got the system for free, you have a new roommate.
 
NeXT said:
They are strange machines. They seem to pop up and vanish often enough and they don't have any extreme demand so they are not commonly sought after by other collectors like say, the straight-8 or the 8/e. Usually they seem to be picked up as part of a lot and not a whole lot of dedication goes into getting them running. I've seen several collectors who either started restoring and never finished or ran them until they completely failed before putting them in storage. Only exception is the LCM who have committed to running their machine several days a week, if not non-stop.
Click to expand...

One of the two smaller PDP-12s at RCS/RI works, and is often powered up for visitors. Spacewar! is a good demo, but hard to play on the switches.

RCS/RI has three PDP-12s in total, plus a LINC-8. One of the PDP-12s is a "Super-12" - an expanded model with floating point hardware and an Omnibus box with an disk and other goodies.

I would estimate that there are twenty PDP-12s in known captivity, plus maybe as many behind closed doors.

--
Will
 
Anyone who buys this will spend x $ per year just to store and operate it.
Click to expand...
Okay, stop right there.
Yes, it costs money to operate. Electricity sucks, right?
Paying to STORE it however means you are doing something wrong. It's not an animal. It's not perishable produce. It's not something that is extremely sensitive to the environment, the light or the dark. It's a computer. It shares the environmental requirements of a couch. Put it in a room that isn't a greenhouse and it will give decades of service. It doesn't NEED a raised floor. It doesn't NEED air conditioning. It sure as hell doesn't need heat. It takes up space in your house but so does your couch, your fridge or your ego. You paid for that space. Fill it with what you want. What are you doing, paying to store it in a locker? Did you buy a modular shed to stuff it in? That's more an indication you need to get rid of things. I've had to let go of lots of hardware over the years simply because something new came in. YOU control the cost of the hobby. It's expensive because you made it expensive.
I'm sorry for the rant but really, next to people who stab me in the back the other thing in this hobby that pisses me off more is people who say "It costs money to keep it."
It's a hobby. Guess what? When you commit you agree to it's requirements and time. If you insist that time and space costs you money, you aren't having fun. If you try and use storage costs to pass the buck, you are an idiot.

One of the two smaller PDP-12s at RCS/RI works, and is often powered up for visitors. Spacewar! is a good demo, but hard to play on the switches.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, I saw photos of them on google. Nice systems but yeah, the keypanel eventually persuades you to get a teletype, if not to do anything else beyond basic FPE.
I think the only other person I saw with the FPU and omnibus expansion was the Corestore.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top