Reviving the PDP-12 at the RICM

[m_thompson]

We have been working on a project to reproduce the Spacewar control boxes from the PDP-1 to use with our PDP-12. A kind volunteer researched the original box design and then made two wooden boxes of the original style. We researched the toggle switches that were available at the time and likely used on the original design, and with a lot of help from other enthusiasts were able to find switches on eBay. We used a modern arcade style push button for the "fire" control that looked similar to the original. I modified the original SPCWR3 to use the LINC GPIO signals that are connected to the button and switches. The modified source is here: http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/dec-pdp-12/dec-pdp-12-source-code

The resulting control boxes work great!

We will look for the source to Tank and see if we can modify that to use the new control boxes.

 

[pbirkel@gmail.com]

BTW, "Skylark.ps"in that folder is probably named in reference to the E.E "Doc" Smith series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skylark_of_Space

Great Space Opera from a kinder, gentler time ...

Note that the author was a graduate student at the time :-}.

 

[m_thompson]

BTW, "Skylark.ps"in that folder is probably named in reference to the E.E "Doc" Smith series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skylark_of_Space

Great Space Opera from a kinder, gentler time ...

Note that the author was a graduate student at the time :-}.

Unfortunately we are missing the source for the data definitions for Skylark, so we can't assemble and run it.