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As far as pdp-10 on a board, I knew the LSI-11 was an 8-bit microcoded processor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCP-1600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCP-1600
by GeorgeTirebiter 6y ago
As far as pdp-10 on a board, I knew the LSI-11 was an 8-bit microcoded processor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCP-1600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCP-1600 In fact, the "EIS/FIS" instruction set option was just another ROM available as an optional chip. And, given that my roommate was doing the KL-10 microcode, I had some idea how you could trade microcode space for actual hardware execution units. So, yes, my original idea was to use the LSI-11 (Western Digital) base chips with different / more microcode. Yes, it would have been slow. But it would have been a pdp-10. Years later, Gordon Bell told me that somebody had built a pdp-10 on a board. I think it may have been an internal project (not the KS10), a hack like the 'pdp-8 in a suitcase' that I saw in Maynard. I need to ask him.
I, too, have difficulty understanding the killing of the pdp-10 line; what often goes unnoticed is the very high level of capability in Marlboro (vs e.g. Maynard). When I started as a co-op student, I wanted to work in Maynard with the pdp-11 folks, which I thought was the cat's meow. But wiser folks told me, "Hey, you should consider yourself special, as they are putting you in the pdp-10 group!" And of course they were right. So when DEC canceled the '20, they also -- effectively -- broke up the best / brightest concentration of computer geeks in the whole company. It's difficult to appreciate the pride the pdp-10 group took in their machines - after all, they were the machines for AI research and were the first machines on the ARPAnet. And, as anybody alive today knows, 32 bits isn't quite enough, but 36? nee 72? Ahhh... ;-)
Ken was a very bright engineer. He used his engineering skills to 'engineer' DEC, I think. I asked him if he thought DEC was competing with IBM, he said "No, we serve different markets." I wish I remembered more about that conversation that day. DEC was only 18 years old at the time.