The PDP-8/e

[pontus]

Finally! After a year or two of searching I have gotten my hands on a PDP-8. A PDP-8/e to be exact. I packed four friends in the car and drove 500+ kilometers and back to the yearly electronics auction at the Gothenburg university. It's arranged by ETA (swedish link) and it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I bought a bunch of other goodies quite cheap and would have bought more unless I had my eyes on the PDP. After a couple nervous hours waiting the PDP-8 was lifted onto the auction table and it was over before it even started Just like that, I now have my dream collectible. It is in fairly good cosmetic condition and complete. The innards is a bit of a mess, but nothing that can't be sorted out.

Here is a video of the actual auction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap2btL3METI (I'm not visible in the video, but my long haired friend is and you get a short glimpse of the 8 ).

I have some crappy pics here: http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/eta/

Does anyone know what the DECMux box is for? I bought it separately from the PDP-8, so its probably not contemporary with it. Also, can you guess what the object on "Bild54.jpg" is? (it was sold as kryptonite )

I'm getting a new camera this week(hopefully) and will update this threads with better pictures then.

 

[Lou - N2MIY]

Very Nice!

Very Nice!

Congratulations!

The papertape reader and dectape drive are great too. I see the PR8-E card in there for the reader. I also see the posibus interface (M835) in there - did you get the TC08 dectape controller that must have been between the 8/e and the TU56?

I see 4kW of core in there. You can build CHD's 32k SRAM memory (but it may not support data break) to take it the rest of the way. See the one I built: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/album.php?albumid=2&pictureid=73

Cosmetically, the front panel looks beautiful. Does the front panel still have lamps, or has it been converted to LEDs? It looks like you are missing two switches. I seem to remember a guy on alt.sys.pdp8 (?) who made his own replacement switches by making a mold from a switch he had, then using a casting compound from an arts-and-crafts store. They came out pretty good.

As I look at the photo of the cards, something looks fishy. Are there two M8300s in there? When you get the chance, maybe you can post the list of cards.

A VT05 would be the right early contemporary video terminal and a VT52 would be correct for the later years.

At any rate, Congratulations again!!!

Lou

 

[Druid6900]

Congratulations and I see you've changed your signature line LOL

 

[Micom 2000]

Wow ! What a scoop. It has always been my holy grail of computers. A friend of mne gave me a manual for it around 1966 because it described the workings of a CPU so clearly.

When I wrote that sentence I questioned my memory and wondered how I could have possibly got that date so wrong. More than 10 years before my computer moniker the Micom ? Altairs, Apple 1 and all the rest coming more than a decade later ? Naw ..
It sent my "Terror of Altheimers" quotent up 500% for my aging mind. Yet the time he gave me it in my memory had some precse time-frames associated with it.

Fortunately Wikipedia relieved my stress. The PDP-8 did come out in 1965. Whew... I am not totally losing it. Still seems a bit strange tho, even to when I took a computer-tech retraining course in the 80s and I quickly grasped the workng processes of "new" computers and used the manual as an aid in my studies. I regretfully sold it on E-Bay around 2001 or 02.

You might search classiccmp for the delightful odyssey of a Toronto guy whose name I've forgotten who bought a bunch (5 truckloads) of old stock including PDP-8s when DEC shut down their Maynard plant and transported it to Toronto. I even offered to help him by driving a truck and loading and unloading, in the hopes I might get a PDP8 out of it. I even arranged a tour of his warehouse to see working PDP 8s and other DECs when he was settled in, by a computer group I was part of but it fell thru. He later had a site called pdp8.com. I believe he eventually sold it all to an outfit in Buffalo or Niagara Falls. Mike Stein on this forum might have known him.

To say I am envious of your good fortune would be a gross understatement.

Lawrence

 

[pontus]

- did you get the TC08 dectape controller that must have been between the 8/e and the TU56?

Yes, it was stuffed in the paper tape reader

I see 4kW of core in there. You can build CHD's 32k SRAM memory

Looks interesting, at the moment I'm more interested in preserving it as "original", but I'll probably want to run something that requires more memory down the line. And its not an intrusive hack at all.

It looks like you are missing two switches.

Yupp, and three more are broken. I also remember the French a.s.pdp8 guy and I've read on some Canadian blog about a similar thing. I think I have a source for at least one or two switches, but I think will use the French connection for the rest of them

As I look at the photo of the cards, something looks fishy. Are there two M8300s in there? When you get the chance, maybe you can post the list of cards.

Indeed, you spotted it. There are two complete sets of CPU-boards. Although it would be cool with a dualcore :twisted:, there must have been two PDP's and one was used as a spare and later thrown away. I'll post a complete list of cards in a day or so, when I get back home.

A VT05 would be the right early contemporary video terminal and a VT52 would be correct for the later years.

A VT05 would be dreamy! they are really cool looking. I guess the asr-33 is more contemporary with the straight eight. I'll probably use this one with a vt125 or a v220 to begin with.

At any rate, Congratulations again!!!

Cheers

Congratulations and I see you've changed your signature line LOL

Thanks At least someone noticed

You might search classiccmp for the delightful odyssey of a Toronto guy

Will do. And I know the feeling about trying to get a peek at the nicer collections. There is a Swede not far from me that has an impressive collection that I've been trying to get a look at for at least a year

 

[nige the hippy]

Now my Swedish doesn't go beyond "basic survival" level but listening to the auction, it certainly sounds like you got bargain of the century there. Well done!

Only problem is that there are now at least 2 people in europe after an ASR-33 (Hiss, boo!)

 

[Al Kossow]

You might search classiccmp for the delightful odyssey of a Toronto guy whose name I've forgotten who bought a bunch (5 truckloads) of old stock including PDP-8s when DEC shut down their Maynard plant and transported it to Toronto. I even offered to help him by driving a truck and loading and unloading, in the hopes I might get a PDP8 out of it. I even arranged a tour of his warehouse to see working PDP 8s and other DECs when he was settled in, by a computer group I was part of but it fell thru. He later had a site called pdp8.com. I believe he eventually sold it all to an outfit in Buffalo or Niagara Falls. Mike Stein on this forum might have known him.
Lawrence

The person would be John Bordynuik. He scrapped most of what was left after selling a bunch of it to Paul Allen.

 

[wmmullaney]

Cool find! Congrats

 

[pontus]

So, I took inventory of the machine today, here is the card list:

M833		KK8E		Timing board, good only for 4K TTY systems
M835		KA8E		External positive I/O bus interface
M840		PC8E		High speed paper tape reader/punch
M849 x2		KK8E		RFI shield
M868		TD8E		DECtape Control
M8300 x2	KK8E		Major registers
M8310 x2	KK8E		Major register control
M8320 x2	KK8E		Bus loads
M8330		KK8E		Timing board, replaces M833
M8650		KL8E		Asynchronous Data Control (current loop or RS232)

G104		MM8E		4K Memory sense/inhibit
G227		MP8E		Memory X/Y drivers
????		????		One memory board, probably 4kW

There you have it, a fairly complete PDP-8/e with some spares
I also check the front panel, it looks like bulbs instead of diodes.

Nige: Don't feel bad, look at it like this, if we need to ship asr-33 from the states we can share shipping (given that we find at least two ). And yes, it was probably quite cheap.

What bugs me a bit is that I found a well preserved asr-33 in the dump at my previous employer, but donated it to the local computer club :???:

 

[MikeS]

The person would be John Bordynuik. He scrapped most of what was left after selling a bunch of it to Paul Allen.

--------
The name rings a bell, but no, didn't know him AFAIR.