21 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
21 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
PDP-10
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n. [Programmed Data Processor model 10] The machine that made timesharing
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real. It looms large in hacker folklore because of its adoption in the
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mid-1970s by many university computing facilities and research labs,
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including the MIT AI Lab, Stanford, and CMU. Some aspects of the instruction
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set (most notably the bit-field instructions) are still considered
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unsurpassed. The 10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines (descendants
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of the PDP-11 ) when DEC recognized that the 10 and VAX product lines were
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competing with each other and decided to concentrate its software
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development effort on the more profitable VAX. The machine was finally
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dropped from DEC's line in 1983, following the failure of the Jupiter
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Project at DEC to build a viable new model. (Some attempts by other
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companies to market clones came to nothing; see Foonly and Mars. ) This
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event spelled the doom of ITS and the technical cultures that had spawned
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the original Jargon File, but by mid-1991 it had become something of a badge
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of honorable old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a
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PDP-10. See TOPS-10 , ITS , BLT , DDT , EXCH , HAKMEM , pop , push. See also
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http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/.
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