I was introduced to computer programming as a sophomore in high school in 1977 on a time-shared PDP-11/70. (NYS BOCES bought the machine for our county and made a few lines available for each high school.) BASIC and FORTRAN (I doubt the FORTRAN77 compiler was available for us before I graduated in 1980). Teletype terminals with paper tape. Card readers. Stone hand-axes and dinosaurs roaming the hallways. Yeah. I'm old. But those were GOOD days. You are my hero for posting this video.
We had hands on IBM mainframe when I was at BOCES. Learned COBOL-D, FORTRAN, & ASSEMBLY. Spent the next 4 decades writing in assembly on mainframes. Feel bad for people who never had real experiences on a mainframe.
I remember happy times programming a PDP-11/03. It had 32K words of RAM and ran RT-11 from an 8 inch floppy disk drive. I programmed data collection programs in Fortran-IV with the OS and program on one floppy disk and data being stored on another.
Thank you for this interesting video. Old computers are fascinating. PS - I bet a lot of people played Zork on the PDP-11. Kind of like how people play Solitaire when the boss is not looking ;-) Cheers from Canada.
Thanks for this! I've got a PDP-11/20 and an LSI-11/23 out in the shed, and a DSD-880 30 MB/floppy which I hope to boot one of these days. I was wondering if I'd remember how to get it started, and you reminded me of the old ODT procedure. Great stuff.
1:35 The PDP-11 was NOT a micro-processor, though at some point the CPU of the PDP-11 was miniaturized into something micro-processor-like. The PDP was initially constructed using (LSI) IC's. Hundreds of them.
DEC was so lightyears ahead of the times. Its next to impossible to find a PDP for sale now days. Consider myself lucky to own a VAXstation 3100 SPX in working order.
The Lear Siegler ADM 3a terminal looks amazing. 'ADM-3 is alert. It says "beep" when you come to the end of the line.' In 1975 the LSI ADM3a was almost rival to Teletype Model 33 KSR teleprinter in speed & price, but I am teleprinter biased.
In the early 90's, Right after highschool, i was a manager of a pizzashop, having 10+ years experience with various 8bits, early IBM's etc, but never seen a mini/mainframe before. The boss, one day handed me a used terminal, looking just like the one pictured, and tasked me to setup the stores finances on it. I was like "Wth? There is no program, harddrive, basic or nothing on this thing? Just a blinking cursor. Something, or rather most of it, is missing. Wheres the rest of the computer?". Boss: "Nah, this is all of it, you dont seem to know computers aswll as you said you did. Cant you just program it?" Seems he gave me only the terminal from the 70's.
Thank you so much for this informative video on PDP-11. As a kid we had PDP-11 in school connected to 15 terminals. I recently downloaded the RSTS 11 and really want to get myself a PDP-11 if possible. Could you discuss the term "Time Sharing" on PDP-11? Thanks again! :-)
5:47 The mini-computers were definitely mini-sized. Compared to the other computers of the day, the mainframes. A mainframe used to fill a small hall, sitting enthroned in a which air-conditioned room like a god, serviced by priests in white cassocks, separated from the commoners by glass screens. At least the mainframes I have seen / worked with.
I was born just one year after the PDP-11, but I imagine to see there with you Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie talking about the new language of computer programming "THE C LANGUAGE", ... ohh my god, ... I'm dreaming looking this video ... on that console was born a myth of the computer programming language, and the UNIX also.
I worked for DEC in the 1970's and 80's. Dennis Ritchie taught me to program in C. I started out as a technician repairing PDP-11/40's, DECSystem 10+20's, and VAX11-780. I later became a programmer and designed the video control and character generator firmware for the VT240, and later still I led a team who developed print symbiant protocol translators for the VMS operating system. In the course of this work I used PAL-11, RSTS, TOPS-10 & 20, RSX-11, and of course VMS. DEC was a great company to work for.
I programmed a PDP-11 running PAL-11 on paper tape! To edit a program you loaded PAL-11 from paper tape. Then you loaded the the editor from paper tape. There was no video terminal. Your terminal was a hard copy teletype or, if you were lucky, a DECWriter. After entering your program on the terminal you punched out a source tape. Then you loaded the assembler program from paper tape. It was a two-pass assembler so you ran your source tape through the paper tape machine twice. The assembler would then punch out an object code tape. You now loaded the linker from paper tape. Now you ran the object code tape through the paper tape reader and the linker punched out an executable program. Now you could load your program from paper tape and run it. Found a bug? Go back to step 1: load the editor from paper tape, then load your source tape.
I used it; you didn’t miss much. It wasn’t really useful until 3.1/3.11, and I still preferred the VAXes, uVAXes, Alphas, and PCs running DOS I used at the time. Win95’s ability to run my DOS SVGA programs virtually in a window at close to full speed was pretty impressive.
I was introduced to computer programming as a sophomore in high school in 1977 on a time-shared PDP-11/70. (NYS BOCES bought the machine for our county and made a few lines available for each high school.) BASIC and FORTRAN (I doubt the FORTRAN77 compiler was available for us before I graduated in 1980). Teletype terminals with paper tape. Card readers. Stone hand-axes and dinosaurs roaming the hallways.
Yeah. I'm old. But those were GOOD days.
You are my hero for posting this video.
We had hands on IBM mainframe when I was at BOCES. Learned COBOL-D, FORTRAN, & ASSEMBLY. Spent the next 4 decades writing in assembly on mainframes.
Feel bad for people who never had real experiences on a mainframe.
I've always wanted a PDP-11 since I was a kid. They seem pretty expensive now and difficult to find. Thanks for making more content on these machines.
Check out the pidp-11/70. $250 kit
I'm on the waiting list and have been for a while. Feels like an eternity.
@@catherined.398 Did you get it yet?
I did! I just have to build it.
Nice explanation. Always good to see PDP-11s on TH-cam :)
I always liked the PDP-11, easy to use and kind of stylish in it's own Digital way...
I remember happy times programming a PDP-11/03. It had 32K words of RAM and ran RT-11 from an 8 inch floppy disk drive. I programmed data collection programs in Fortran-IV with the OS and program on one floppy disk and data being stored on another.
Enjoying this a lot, thanks for posting.
Thank you for this interesting video. Old computers are fascinating. PS - I bet a lot of people played Zork on the PDP-11. Kind of like how people play Solitaire when the boss is not looking ;-)
Cheers from Canada.
Thanks for this! I've got a PDP-11/20 and an LSI-11/23 out in the shed, and a DSD-880 30 MB/floppy which I hope to boot one of these days. I was wondering if I'd remember how to get it started, and you reminded me of the old ODT procedure. Great stuff.
5:38 Basically you can divide the models into 3 levels, based on how many bits of physical address they could handle: 16, 18 and 22.
That is true yes.
1:35 The PDP-11 was NOT a micro-processor, though at some point the CPU of the PDP-11 was miniaturized into something micro-processor-like. The PDP was initially constructed using (LSI) IC's. Hundreds of them.
DEC was so lightyears ahead of the times. Its next to impossible to find a PDP for sale now days. Consider myself lucky to own a VAXstation 3100 SPX in working order.
There are still selling "NEW" VAXstation 4000/90's on EBay for 30K!
@@lashlarue59 ya no thanks. I love Vax, but not that much.
The Lear Siegler ADM 3a terminal looks amazing. 'ADM-3 is alert. It says "beep" when you come to the end of the line.' In 1975 the LSI ADM3a was almost rival to Teletype Model 33 KSR teleprinter in speed & price, but I am teleprinter biased.
I used a 11/44 with 780K memory -- running RSTS/E 7-2.04. In 1983. Great times.
In the early 90's, Right after highschool, i was a manager of a pizzashop, having 10+ years experience with various 8bits, early IBM's etc, but never seen a mini/mainframe before. The boss, one day handed me a used terminal, looking just like the one pictured, and tasked me to setup the stores finances on it. I was like "Wth? There is no program, harddrive, basic or nothing on this thing? Just a blinking cursor. Something, or rather most of it, is missing. Wheres the rest of the computer?". Boss: "Nah, this is all of it, you dont seem to know computers aswll as you said you did. Cant you just program it?" Seems he gave me only the terminal from the 70's.
Thank you so much for this informative video on PDP-11. As a kid we had PDP-11 in school connected to 15 terminals. I recently downloaded the RSTS 11 and really want to get myself a PDP-11 if possible. Could you discuss the term "Time Sharing" on PDP-11? Thanks again! :-)
5:47 The mini-computers were definitely mini-sized. Compared to the other computers of the day, the mainframes. A mainframe used to fill a small hall, sitting enthroned in a which air-conditioned room like a god, serviced by priests in white cassocks, separated from the commoners by glass screens. At least the mainframes I have seen / worked with.
He got the chronology all jumbled up. His computer dates from around 1985. The TU56 tape drive dates from the mid 70s.
Great video, Thanks
I was born just one year after the PDP-11, but I imagine to see there with you Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie talking about the new language of computer programming "THE C LANGUAGE", ... ohh my god, ... I'm dreaming looking this video ... on that console was born a myth of the computer programming language, and the UNIX also.
I worked for DEC in the 1970's and 80's. Dennis Ritchie taught me to program in C. I started out as a technician repairing PDP-11/40's, DECSystem 10+20's, and VAX11-780. I later became a programmer and designed the video control and character generator firmware for the VT240, and later still I led a team who developed print symbiant protocol translators for the VMS operating system. In the course of this work I used PAL-11, RSTS, TOPS-10 & 20, RSX-11, and of course VMS. DEC was a great company to work for.
15:02 I thought you meant “magnetic tape”, which stumped me. But it seems you actually mean “paper tape”!
Yes :)
I programmed a PDP-11 running PAL-11 on paper tape! To edit a program you loaded PAL-11 from paper tape. Then you loaded the the editor from paper tape. There was no video terminal. Your terminal was a hard copy teletype or, if you were lucky, a DECWriter. After entering your program on the terminal you punched out a source tape. Then you loaded the assembler program from paper tape. It was a two-pass assembler so you ran your source tape through the paper tape machine twice. The assembler would then punch out an object code tape. You now loaded the linker from paper tape. Now you ran the object code tape through the paper tape reader and the linker punched out an executable program. Now you could load your program from paper tape and run it. Found a bug? Go back to step 1: load the editor from paper tape, then load your source tape.
Hi, can someone please help me with the case dimensions of PDP-11 in inches or cm?
Looks lite it could be great content, but the recorded audio level is way too low.
A LOT of people seem to forget that good audio is just as important to good video. Maybe one day he will learn to edit properly
I learned on PDP-11s
Then VAXen, then Alpha.
The eunuchs took over 😡
Volume is way to low.
I need some help about PDP11 how I can contact You?
Debería estar en Español el vídeo, el título está en español...
15:08 I think you mean “RSTS”.
Found 11pcs of some 1983 digital computers. Not sure what I have , any other information would be helpful. Thanks
Have you dug up any more info on them? You should post a video of them.
Can I have the Windows 1.0, I never used it
I used it; you didn’t miss much. It wasn’t really useful until 3.1/3.11, and I still preferred the VAXes, uVAXes, Alphas, and PCs running DOS I used at the time.
Win95’s ability to run my DOS SVGA programs virtually in a window at close to full speed was pretty impressive.
.assist
@165000g
I realize that English is not your native language, but still, please try to limit your 'ums'.
I like it! It's like he's the Dracula of PDP-11; out for IBM's blood.