We 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 f

We 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.