PDP-8 screws

Bob Rosenbloom bobalan at sbcglobal.net
Fri Oct 26 21:41:11 CDT 2018


On 10/26/2018 7:19 PM, Steve Malikoff via cctalk wrote:
> William said
>> One the original PDP-8 ("Straight 8"), the front panel has two aluminum
>> strips on the sides, one on the left and one on the right. Each should have
>> a pair of flathead countersunk screws, likwly Phillips head.
>>
>> Can someone tell me the exact specs, basically thread, length, head, and
>> material of the screws?
>
> I have no idea what the straight eight screws are, but for comparison the sort of screws in
> the PDP-11/05 are things like #6-32 x 1/2 phillips pan head, #10-32 x 5/16 phillips head truss,
> #8-32 x 3/8 phillips pan head nyloc, #2-56 x 1/2 phillips pan head, #4-40 x 3/8 phillips head
> flat. And so on it goes.
>
> I read somewhere DEC used a lot of stainless screws but that may not apply to all of them.
> Certainly the cheese head screws that the 11/15's 10-1/2" chassis pivots on are stainless, I
> checked that for curiosity's sake when I machined some special adapter washers to use with
> modern server slides.
>
> At any rate, you have that wondrous (but US only) fastener supplier's website to help you out.
>
> Steve.

I have four straight-8 panels. All have flat head, stainless (at least 
non-magnetic) screws. Three have Philips head screws
and one has slotted head screws. All are 0.38" total length with about 
0.28" thread length. Looks to be an 82 degree
countersink.

Bob

-- 
Vintage computers and electronics
www.dvq.com
www.tekmuseum.com
www.decmuseum.org



More information about the cctech mailing list