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PDP-1

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PDP-1, CRT, TTY and processor rack 1PDP-1, CRT, TTY and processor rack 1

  1. PDP-1 Type 30 point-mode CRT display, a vector display system, and console typewriter, with processor frame in background, PDP-1 from Wikipedia↩︎

PDP-1, (Programmed Data Processor-1)
the first computer in DEC's Programmed Data Processor series, first launched in 1960, forerunner of the PDP-8 and PDP-11 minicomputers, and the World's first commercial interactive computer used for process control, scientific research, and graphics programming, as well as to pioneer timesharing systems.

Based on the TX-0 and TX-2 computers he had designed at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, Ben Gurley constructed the PDP-11 in under three–and–a–half months 1. The PDP-1 had 4K 18-bit words as standard main memory, upgradable to 64K words, and an internal instruction execution rate of 100,000 to 200,000 per second 2. Signed numbers were represented in ones' complement.

Contents
  1. Hardware
  2. Assembly
  3. PDP-1 Chess
  4. Spacewar!
  5. See also
  6. External Links
  7. References

Hardware

The processor consists of discrete germanium transistor logic in form of System Building Block modules, inserting 25 of them into a 5-1/4 inch section of a custom 19-inch rack. System Building Block 1103 - hex-inverter card 3

Assembly

In the early 60s, Edward Fredkin, while affiliated with BBN, wrote the first PDP-1 assembler called FRAP (Fredkin’s Assembly Program) 4. Ed Fredkin working on PDP-1 (1960 ca.) 5

PDP-1 Chess

As told by Alan Kotok at the PDP-1 Celebration Event Lecture, May 15, 2006 6, PDP-1 Chess, a apparently strong new chess program developed at BBN or elsewhere, was a hoax. Kotok, at that time in the early 60s student at MIT and PDP-1 programmer, was member of the Tech Model Railroad Club as well as member of the chess group around John McCarthy, and already co-author of Kotok-McCarthy for the IBM 7090. He and some of his colleagues had established a network, a TTY connection between the PDP-1 and the TX 0 in an adjoining room, where some of the better MIT chess players "simulated" PDP-1 Chess with a chess board at the TTY console, playing a game versus some testers with McCarthy involved. The "cheat" was finally noticed, when later during the game both board positions somehow became out of sync.

Spacewar!

In 1961/62, Steve Russell developed [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar! Spacewar!], one of the first interactive video games, after Alan Kotok obtained some sine and cosine routines from DEC 7.

See also

Watch on YouTube

References

Up one Level

  1. PDP-1 from The Computer History Museum↩︎

  2. Digital Computing timeline 1960 - PDP-11↩︎

  3. Dec System Building Blocks 1103 hex-inverter card (both sides), DEC - Digital modules from Wikipedia↩︎

  4. Edward Fredkin - Career, from Wikipedia↩︎

  5. Ed Fredkin working on PDP-1 (1960 ca.), from The Computer History Museum↩︎

  6. The Mouse That Roared: PDP-1 Celebration Event Lecture at 1:05:24↩︎

  7. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar! Spacewar! from Wikipedia]↩︎

What links here

Contributors: GerdIsenberg.