PDP11/10 Vintage Minicomputer in Bugbook Historical Micrcomputer Museum

Our museum has only one minicomputer - (PDP11/10)   on display. We think it is a good idea to have a minicomputer to make comparisons with the microcomputers.  This PDP11 was  made

PDP11 computer

info click

in 1971 and cost about as much as a small house. It is easy to see why not many people could afford to purchase a minicomputer for home use. When the first microcomputers became available they were instantly in demand. The Altair 8800 first microcomputer kit made possible home computing  in January of 1975. The Altair 8800 sold for $395 however it was very limited in capability without a lot of skilled work and additions to the computer. The Altair was designed by Ed Roberts. Ed thought he could sell 500 computers however I understand he had 4000 orders the first several months. We are fortunate to have one of the very first Altair 8800's in our collection -- Serial Number 23.



 The PDP 11/10 in the Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum by David Larsen


Click photo to enlarge

PDP11 and David Larsen, Curator with PDP11

Digital Epuipment Corporation (DEC) made mincomputer from 1960 to about 1990. Microcomputers put DEC out of business with very good low cost computing. The first PDP computer was a PDP1 in 1960. Only about 3 of these computers still survive. The Computer History Museum in Mt. View, California has a restored PDP1 restored and in nice working condition.

PDP11/10 minicomputer

Many versions of the PDP11 were made and about 600,000 were sold during its 20 year lifetime.

The core memory is nonvolatile and does not lose its memory when powered off for the day. This module has very tiny cores -probably  16k words of 16 bits each.




Magnetic core memory module PDP11/10

Click this link for a verbal description.The PDP 11/10 

David Larsen

.^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
   Join museum on Twitter   Join museum on FB