[vcf-midatlantic] Happy DEC-10 day

[Herb Johnson]

Those who remember the legacy of the PDP-10, DEC-10 and DEC-20 might use 
this day, to consider what might have been, and what was, for this DEC 
product line. In the late 1970's I ran a KA-10, the oldest PDP-10, for a 
university's Artificial Intelligence department. But it was also used 
for general timesharing access, and many universities ran TOPS-10 and 
PDP-10 KA's and later KI's and KL's to service many many terminals.

These were not small machines, they filled rooms. But a later KS-10 
model was a microprogrammed version of the PDP-10 - it was only the size 
of a very large refrigerator. Compuserve used KS-10's as network 
controllers, and ran their own OS on 10's to provide their services.

But DEC "choked" on developing 36-bit PDP-10 compatible workstations or 
desktops (some of those engineers went on to form Data General) and DEC 
produced the VAX line instead. The old PDP-10's were eventually taken 
out of commercial service; I don't know if any are running commercially 
today. It's hard to run one "privately" in a basement or garage, but 
someone likely fires something up in the winter.

If anyone knows directly of a PDP-10 out there today, it would be nice 
to know of it. Happy DEC-10 day!

Herb Johnson

-- 
Herbert R. Johnson,  New Jersey USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net