>
>
> This is off topic and in completely in an un-comprehensible language, but a
> guy on a Swedish electronic forum is refurbishing the REAL THING.
> t least have a look at the pictures and use Babelfish or Google if you
> think there may be something ibnteresting in the text.
>
> URL:
http://www.elektronikforumet.com/forum/ ... =3&t=46611
>
> /Magnus
>
The problem with the 8/L is that it did not have the extended address
registers and was limited to 4Kw of core. The more interesting machine was
the 8/I (same architecture but had extended addressing). But they did not
have the MQ register (I think that was what it was called) so a fair bit of
later software wouldn't run. Also both machines were built out of individual
SSI Flip Chips and the logic was wire-wrapped on the backplane. It was
painfully difficult to add peripherals. (I had an 8/I as my personal
computer back in 1976 when I realized that there was virtually no software
available for my Imsai 8080.) I tried to add DECtape to my 8/I but
discovered that it was a painful process and eventually gave up on the
project. By then the prices were coming down on the 8E and 8A. I found that
the trick was to get systems that were damaged in shipping, purchase them as
scrap, and then fix them. I could usually build three good systems out of
four wrecked systems.
No, if one wants a vintage PDP-8, the right answer is one of the omnibus
machines, either an 8/E or an 8/A. Both fit into a standard 8U(? I forget)
chassis. The 8/E was faster, had a two-board CPU, and that wonderful front
panel. You had to toggle in the paper tape RIM loader (normally kept at the
top of the last page of core and used to load the more-useful BIN loader) or
you had to toggle in the disk-boot code. That was simple and just amounted
to commanding the disk controller to load the first sector of the disk
(drive 0, head 0, track 0, sector 0) into address 0, spin looking for
completion, and then jump to address 0. The 8/A had no front panel but did
have a diode-ROM boot loader that would boot from disk. (I hope I am getting
this right. It has been a few years. I actually made a sparse living buying,
fixing, selling, and setting up 8's and 11's for people. Still, after 35
years it all starts to run together.)