PDP-8/e and terminals in West Sussex, UK

[Tony Duell]

> 
> Tony Duell wrote:
> > What do people consider to be the 'holy grails' of classic computer 
> > collecting? 
> 
> Interesting question. Are we limited to production machines? For me, 

As I'm one of the main people to be a 'smartarse' when others ask general 
questions, I feel it would be most unreasoanble to object to any 
interpretation :-).

So, yes, you can include prototypes, provided at least one is known to 
have survived. And of course I include micros.

> prototypes actually seem to hold more interest - it's fascinating to see how a 
> prototype evolved into a final product (or how bits of it were re-used in 
> other products), or to see from the various hardware hacks which bits the 
> designers were having trouble making work
> 
> Oddball architectures appeal, too - parallel / multiprocessor systems, those 
> which use a secondary processor for bootstrap / monitoring, those which use an 
> uncommon CPU. Then there's graphics-heavy systems - I can always appreciate 
> (and relate to) something with a lot of attached graphics hardware.

Sure, but those needn't be particuarly rare. An obvious example of a 
machine with a bootstrap processor is the Torch XXX, which uses a 6303 or 
something to boot the 68000 (it copies the bootstrap code from its 8 bit 
EPROM into the (shared) video memory, then releases the 68K from reset). 
Now, XXXs are not that common, but I'd not call them a 'holy grail'.

 
> I'm not too fussy I suppose - I don't tend to go after specific machines, but 

I do, and I don;t. There are some things that if they turned up in a way 
I could _possibly_ obtain them, I'd do all I could to get them. And there 
are other machines that I've bought becasue they were easy to obtain (for 
me) and probably interesting. And still others that I have because they 
were free :-). 


> just see what shows up. Having said that I would *love* a Connection Machine 
> CM2, although I probably wouldn't know what to do with it - but you can never 
> had too many blinkenlights :-)
> 
> Now that I have the space for it, I do really want to find something *big* to 
> play with - not necessarily rare or anything, but a few cabinets of mini or 
> mainframe would be fun to screw around with (maybe a PDP-11 and some storage / 
> I/O would be nice, then I could perhaps understand what all the fuss is about 
> DEC machines :-)

You mentioned graphics earlier. There were many external third-party 
graphics add-ons for PDP11s and VAXen. Some of them downright strange. 
How about the PPL video hard disk (one track per colour per frame, stores 
the image in FM-encoded _analogue_ on the disk. Replays it in real time 
through a demodulator to the monitor). Or an I2S Model 70 (now I think 
that _is_ rare). Any machine with over 3000 DRAM chips and about the same 
number of logic pacakges must be interesting :-).

-tony