The PDP-8 was a mini-computer manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation eons ago and introduced in its earliest configuration on March 22, 1965. I was about to turn 5, and I likely had no clue what a computer was.
I was introduced to the PDP-8 in 1974 as a junior high student and wrote a few programs for a class that year. This is also about the time I noticed girls more. I wanted one, a computer, the girlfriends would have to wait another year.
Move forward 6 years to my 3rd year of college and somehow that old PDP-8 from 1974 had made its way to the local university I was attending. It was a chance encounter on my part as I took a different route through one of the campus buildings to kill some time. In some isolated room, miles from the campus computer center, it continued to hum it’s merry way. I never did find out what they were using it for, or when they got it. I still wanted one.
After college, I did not expect to see a PDP-8 machine at all. I went to work for a local software company, and, well, as luck would have it, I did have a chance to install our fuel oil billing software on a PDP-8 at an oil delivery company in 1985. I would have still wanted one – all those lights flashing and panel switches.
Move forward about 30+ years and one can procure a PDP-8 emulator and mini-replica based on the Raspberry Pi for example. I’m wondering what I will do!!