PDP1 Vintage Computer at the Computer History Museum - Mountain View , California

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The visit to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California was insanely great - it was 56 years ago my career in computers started with school at 'Remington Rand Univac' in St. Paul, MN.  Much of the old things I worked with long before microcomputers were on display with excellent documentation.

Lyle Bickley is a volunteer at the museum and is on the PDP1 team. Lyle not only demonstrated the PDP1 but gave us a complete tour of all the displays. The PDP1 is a computer I have never had the opportunity to use or see - the only operational one is at the museum and we were able to play "Spacewar!" on the machine.

Video story of PDP 1 history by Lyle Bickley below photo's.

Click on photo to enlarge 

 Lyle Bickley team member for the PDP1 at the
Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
The 2 boxes on the railing black knobs are for playing
 "Spacewar!" on the PDP1.

L-R David Larsen, Bob Rosenbloom & Lyle Bickley
at the PDP1 Computer. Lyle demonstrated the PDP1
operating and we all played "Spacewar!".

L-R Gaynell Larsen, Bob Rosenbloom & Lyle Bickley.








Lyle told us all the PDP1 computers were custom made and were all a little different. This large photo in on the wall in the room with the PDP1 looks much different with additional display panel and three additional racks of equipment (communications controllers,
etc.).   When restoring the PDP1 at the museum Lyle told us they could not find diagrams or schematics that were a good match for that machine and they had to do some guessing and trial and error testing to make the machine operational. The team worked for 1.5 years restoring the PDP1.

Many different historical items on display - here is a Google Map bicycle and car.






                                                             Video of Lyle Bickley telling
                                                             some history about the PDP1.

David & Gaynell Larsen

.^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
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