4 ms·
Back in the late 80's, early 90's, a friend of mine bought some used PDP-11/70's from Illinois Bell. He'd sell them as parts into the aftermarket and did okay.
by johnohara 14y ago
Back in the late 80's, early 90's, a friend of mine bought some used PDP-11/70's from Illinois Bell. He'd sell them as parts into the aftermarket and did okay. Not great but steady.
He kept one in his detached garage that would load the initial bootstrap and then prompt the console for the operating system, which he didn't have. From that point on it patiently waited for a response and was used to heat the garage.
- ilikejam 14y agoThat makes me feel kind of sad. A once-mighty machine waiting hopefully in the dark for an Operator to load a tape. $ But the Operators never arrive.
- Aloha 14y agowow, this comment made me whimper a little inside.
- andrewflnr 14y agoGrab some tissues. http://xkcd.com/695/ http://xkcd.com/695/
- Aloha 14y agonot fair!
- johnohara 14y agoIf I recall correctly the prompt was: boot> _ The developers should have put a countdown timer in there. Each hour, add a question mark and change it to: boot?> _ boot??> _ boot???> _ hello? boot?> _
- WalterBright 14y agoFortunately, a friend of mine had kept his old PDP-11 and was able to retrieve some files for me from some old media that I'd overlooked transferring decades ago.
- dbarlett 14y agoGreat case study on a U.S. Navy motion simulator that still uses Unibus cards (via a PCI PDP-11 emulator and modern chassis): http://www.migrationspecialties.com/pdf/MSDD.pdf http://www.migrationspecialties.com/pdf/MSDD.pdf