Re: gEDA-user: Re: Pointer to 3d CAD?

[ldoolitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Dave -

On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 09:12:49PM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote:
>   It all depends on what you're into.  I've been discussing a  
> project with a friend that would involve building what amounts to a  
> copy of the PDP-8 ("Straight-8", no suffix) with individual  
> transistors.  It's fun, cool, and highly educational in a number of  
> areas.

I once personally diagnosed and replaced a blown diode in a PDP-5.
When it blew, it made an accumulator bit stick on, and the machine
became unusable.  That event caused the machine to be retired from
the Caltech Cyclotron.  My friends and I found it abandoned many
years later, in about 1978.  We fixed, refurbished, and played with
it.  The process was very educational.

The PDP-5 was the predecessor to the PDP-8.  The big difference
between the two was cycle time: 10us for the PDP-5 vs. 4us for
the PDP-8, IIRC.  Each had 4K x 12 of core memory.  It's possible
that machine is still kicking around Caltech; if you're interested
I could make inquiries.

    - Larry


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