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I spent many years using PDP-11s. I remember DECs attempt at a microcomputer, the LSI-11. It was twice the price of a PC, half as fast, and the size of a dish
by mark-r 6y ago
I spent many years using PDP-11s. I remember DECs attempt at a microcomputer, the LSI-11. It was twice the price of a PC, half as fast, and the size of a dishwasher. If you've never heard of it, it's no wonder.
- jonjacky 6y agoWe had one of those - a PDP11/23 - it ran our cyclotron. Handled about a thousand inputs and outputs, using RSX, a DEC real time OS. Ran almost continuously for about 30 years. I say again, it ran our cyclotron almost continuously for about 30 years. Outlasted DEC itself - eventually HP (which took over DEC's customers) told us they wouldn't renew the service contract. We kept it going with spare parts on hand. Eventually we replaced it with about a dozen x86 boxes running Linux.
- WalterBright 6y ago> and the size of a dishwasher. Checkout my PDP-11: https://twitter.com/WalterBright https://twitter.com/WalterBright
- jonjacky 6y agoIs that a Heathkit H-11 ? (with an LSI-11 processor) With 8 inch floppy disks? Does it still work?
- WalterBright 6y agoYes, with the 8" floppy drives, and a VT-52 clone. I gave it away to a father to give to his kid. A couple years later, I realized my mistake and asked to buy it back, but he'd thrown it in the trash :-( I still have that Heathkit terminal, but I haven't turned it on in 37 years or so, though it was in perfect working order at the time. I soldered all three kits together, and it all worked perfectly the first time I turned it on. Those were great kits. I also had a very expensive Diablo 630 daisywheel printer to go with it, built like a tank. But I couldn't give it away, and finally it went to the dump around 10 years ago. I did keep my original IBM PC, but the chips went bad in it while in storage and it won't power up anymore.
- infradig 6y agoThe LSI-11s I used came in slimline pizza box form. Very compact. I used to do A/D conversion on them for pathology lab equipment.
- jonjacky 6y agoMost of the volume of the dishwasher-sized 11/23 was the two 14" removable hard disk packs - much higher capacity than the floppy disks of the day. I recall the circuit board with the LSI-11 on it was quite a bit smaller than an IBM PC motherboard. Most of the volume of the packaged LSI-11 systems was I/O and disk storage - there were several models of different sizes, I recall the 11/23 was the largest. The 11/23 was not a consumer-grade product. I don't think it was intended to compete with PCs.
- mark-r 6y agoI was thinking of the 11/03, not 11/23. And the disks were in a separate enclosure, most of the dishwasher size box was empty air. Yes, the boards in the LSI series were much smaller than the equivalent PDP boards - they had a name for the form factor but I can't remember what it was. Of course I may be misremembering things, this was 40 years ago.
- mark-r 6y agoCuriosity got the better of me, and I decided to look it up on Wikipedia. The board form factor itself didn't have a name, but it was tied to the bus that was used. The PDP-11s used the Unibus, and the LSI-11 and its variants used the Q-bus. They also have a picture of the 11/03, and it's indeed much smaller than I remember. Perhaps I was thinking of the 11/23.