#pdp8 — Public Fediverse posts

At the old Computer History Museum (when it was in Boston), they had an exhibit showing a PDP-8 being used for brain surgery. #pdp8 #chm

Episódio 176 – MSX ao redor do mundo – Parte B

https://retropolis.com.br/2026/07/22/episodio-176-msx-ao-redor-do-mundo-parte-b/

#Podcast #Akai #AlAlamiah #Austrlia #Bawareth #casio #CCE #CETEC #China #Daaewoo #Daewoo #DickSmith #Disprosoft #dynacom #Dynadata #etrocomputao #ForteII #Frana #Goldstar #HongKong #IbmPc #Infogrames #Intensai #Jiban #laser #LG #Maxbyte #MelbourneHouse #Microdigital #Microsystemes #MSX #MSX2 #NovaZelndia #PDP8 #pioneer #podcast #Portugal #racimec #Radiola #retroga

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 03.07. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

Ah, yes, the DECmate II, the "little PDP-8 that could"—more like "the little PDP-8 that barely could but we talk about it incessantly anyway." 🚢🔍 Who knew turning a #minicomputer into a desktop would lead to more articles than sales? 📉💾
http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2026/05/ahoy-decmate-ii-little-pdp-8-that-could.html #DECmateII #PDP8 #nostalgia #techhistory #computing #HackerNews #ngated

Ahoy, DECmate II the little PDP-8 that could

http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2026/05/ahoy-decmate-ii-little-pdp-8-that-could.html

#HackerNews #DECmateII #PDP8 #vintagecomputing #retrohardware #techhistory

This post
https://fosstodon.org/@deshipu/116510956431897662

tongue in cheek as it is, idly got me wondering if building a 5 bit computer would have ever made sense. The PDP-8/S was a *ONE* bit computer in the sense it reused the ALU one bit at a time cycling the bits through. It had also earned the nickname the PDP-8/Slow for this reason.
A University school mate of mine owned one!
The minimum 'byte' was 6 bits and it used RAD50 for this reason. So no a 5 bit computer would not have made sense, to save RAM as jokingly put, but we come close.

#PDP8 #PDP8S

Field Service Only. #dec #pdp8 #VCFe #VCFe25 #vintagecomputing

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 01.05. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

[Перевод] RESISTORS: как подростки из 1960-х работали с компьютерами до эпохи ПК

В конце апреля 1968 года компьютерная конференция в Атлантик-Сити едва не сорвалась из-за забастовки телефонисток: терминалы крупных компаний стояли мёртвые. И вот посреди этой неразберихи в центре внимания оказалась небольшая группа подростков из окрестностей Принстона. Они раздобыли акустический модем, подсоединили его к ближайшему таксофону — и вышли на связь с удалённой мини-ЭВМ. Отраслевая газета Computerworld вывела их на первую полосу с заголовком в духе «Школьники украли шоу у профессионалов». Эти ребята называли себя RESISTORS — придуманная задним числом расшифровка аббревиатуры: «Radically Emphatic Students Interested in Science, Technology, Or Research Studies» — то есть «Радикально увлечённые ученики, интересующиеся наукой, техникой и исследованиями».

https://habr.com/ru/companies/cloud4y/articles/1029094/

#RESISTORS #история_компьютеров #Тед_Нельсон #гипертекст #PDP8 #Burroughs_Datatron_205 #Клод_Каган #Project_Xanadu #Computer_Lib #история_программирования

War schon 1982 klar, dass das mit dem Wal so kommen musste:

The Baltic See is getting warmer!
Gemessen und berechnet mit KSR4100 aus CZJ Jena, aka PDP-8

https://pflegende.wordpress.com/2025/08/23/pdp-8-revieval-2025/ #COCOM, #COMECON, #DDR, #DEC, #Emulation, #History, #PDP-8, #PDP8, #ROBOTRON #retrocomputing

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 06.03. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

The next thing I've been tackling has been the verb/grammar code. The goal here is to represent the logic/data structures from this section of the #PunyInform library: https://github.com/johanberntsson/PunyInform/blob/master/lib/grammar.h#L7-L225

It looks like a combinatorial explosion of possible prepositions in a large space of possible sequences, along with placeholders for object search conditionals. It feels like the kind of thing that needs a lot of core just to map it all out. Sure, I have my input words compressed to single 12-bit integers, but there's a lot of repetition in the source there and it seems like a mess to represent.

I made a list of all the tokens in this thing, and came up with 32 values (including a null). Well, that's neat! I could decide that if the most significant bit of a tanner is `0`, it's a lookup into a table of 12-bit values. I have some space left in my compression scheme for ideas like "object in scope" or "object in inventory" (which can gobble multiple words), so I can handle common cases like `INVENTORY`, or `GET LAMP`, or `TURN ON LAMP`. I map the `TURN` verb into a pair of indices for `ON` and *noun*, pointing out to our equivalent of the Puny `SwitchOn` function in the #PDP8 game code.

Okay, but what about all that `'in'/'into'/'inside'/'on'/'onto'` stuff? Well, If the tanner's most significant bit is `1`, then I treat it as a sort of pointer into the second half of my grammar index. So that might look like this:

37. `IN`, `INTO`
38. `INSIDE`, *37*
39. `ON`, `ONTO`
40. *38*, *39*

So I might have `GET` mapping a grammar word of [*40*,*noun*] to the `ENTER` procedure, so that `GET INSIDE BICYCLE` and `GET ONTO BICYCLE` will both call the same code. The grammars use 3 words per mapping, and make use of a table of 64 words. This feels more comfortable for the type of system I'm writing here.

Yes, this is just #LISP cons cells, and I love that.

Now I just need to write all this...

Who wants to build a P(i)DP-8? ❤️

#raspberrypi #pdp8 #electronics

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 05.12. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

Forgot I even had this! #pdp8 #pdp-8 #intersil #6100

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 07.11. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

Why does booting a #PDP8 straight eight take 20 minutes? The #Teletype isn't any faster reading the paperstrip...

#datArena

„Die leistungsfähige Arbeitsmethode für Ingenieure“

Es ist eine Werbebroschüre für eine PDP-8/e. #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #classiccomputing2025 #classiccomputing #pdp #pdp8

Programming a PDP-8 with a Teletype Writer. Please note the coordinated color scheme of the PDP with the programmers shirt. #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #classiccomputing2025 #classiccomputing #pdp #pdp8

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 04.07. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

Finally found lunarlander.foc again!

Running Lunar Lander on the PDP-8 Using Paper Tape FOCAL - Computer History Wiki

https://gunkies.org/wiki/Running_Lunar_Lander_on_the_PDP-8_Using_Paper_Tape_FOCAL

(Edit this is actually a different version!)

#Retrocomputing #focal #LunarLander #PDP8

My student, Zach, got the famous Whetstone floating-point benchmark running in FORTRAN IV on our PDP-12 (results had never been recorded for a '12 without an FPP). He also implemented the Dhrystone integer benchmark in PDP-8 assembly, which (as far as we know) has never been done before. You can read more about it here, and if you have a PDP-8 compatible machine (with or without EAE), you should be able to run his code to benchmark your system! Way to go, Zach! https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/pdp-8-and-pdp-12-and-dhrystone-and-whetstone.1253367/ #pdp12 #pdp #retrocomputing #umdpdp12 #pdp8

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 06.06. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 06.06. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner