Pieces of 8

Got a PDP-8/L from Ebay last week from a recycler. I was not really sure what was inside as the listing had only a picture of the wire wrapped backplane (the top) but I thought it still might be worthy of a… More restoration. As I opened the box, there was a fine dirt coming out and it was all over the place. Turns out the foam padding in the card side had almost completely disintegrated. Better that then turning to tar as happens in IBM 5100s. Anyway, I am a total newbie so I have lots to learn before even getting close to powering it up (and vacuuming too). If anyone has a "bring-up" guide, I would really appreciate a link. Here are a couple of pics. Is it semi-complete?

Having problems booting a PDP-8 (SBC6120)... The CF (IDE) matches the memory @ 0000, and that matches a dump of the ".ide" file with OS/8....

BUT...

>B
-IDA0
00005/ 6206 PR 0
PC>0012 PS>0000 AC>0000 MQ>0000 SP1>0000 SP2>0000

Hello everyone, I’m interested in purchasing a complete PDP-8/S, 8/I or 8/L. I realize that these can be challenging to find, so any possible leads would be greatly appreciated!

A question of dates....

Finally have a TSS/8 system (on a Pidp8-i) and reliving memories....but some of the dates don't jive...

I first used this during the 1972-1973 school year, but the computer was present and in use at the school for grading tests the prior [1971-1972] year. This means that the latest it could have been installed was the summer… More of 1971....

i like how it's just sitting outside. from the july, 1973 datamation, courtesy of bitsavers.org

I finally opened a 32k ram card for the 8/A.

Future project after I get to them.

This one is marked bad, but I have 2 others asxwell which hopefully will be good.

I did a slow video pan over the bottom logic array, then photographed the other areas.

Just curious: has anyone heard of someone named Herb Kay, who seems to have written (at least part of) a BASIC compiler for TSS/8 called "BASIK"? I have a folder full of listings and notes from the mid 1970s that came with my PDP-8/e when I bought it from Belmont (Mass.) High School in 1983. I always thought they were unsigned but last night I… More found his name in a comment block while poring over the listings much more closely, trying to get the bitmap of the entire LA30P font (sadly there's no %, \, or _ anywhere in there so I may have to extract the CG ROM after all, and it uses weird voltages). Anyway I'm wondering if the project ever went anywhere, and whether he still cares and might want scans (assuming I can get 9 7/8" LA30 paper to fit my scanner).

Forgot I had this. It was intended to be a VT-100 in a keyboard. Keytronic item from 1983.

This is another shot of the VT100. The CPU is an 8088. It has 64k of ram.

Anyone know about these non-DEC flip chips?

A couple of years ago, I took a picture of a PDP-8 and built a simulation around it so that computer science pupils in a school where I was teaching could experience computing in binary at the coal face. It… More was possible to enter instructions and to run a program, either at full speed, or in single-step mode. I got BIN and RIM loaders working. An installation is available from http://meltonisl.com/SetupPDP8Simulation.zip

rumors of my recent death are fortunately somewhat exaggerated.

Sighting.

Anyone interested in an unbuilt IOB-6120 kit that goes with the Spare Time Gizmos SBC-6120? Here's the board, if you're not familiar with it.

https://www.jkearney.com/sbc6120/iob6120.htm

This is a revision 6… More board, which requires a modification if you're going to use the coin cell batteries. Without the mod, the batteries are back-powering one of the ICs, which causes them to discharge faster when power is removed from the board. If you're just using the lithium cells for transitory power losses, it's not much of an issue. But if you're powering off the board for any length of time (probably on the order of days, not hours), it's not really an issue.

Somewhat crazy question. Is one of the members in this group a person who used to live in Blacksburg Virginia, in a farmhouse and had to get rid of a PDP eight because they were starting to grow their family. Two crazy people drove down from New York and the PDP it was loaded into a U-Haul truck. The buyer was me I would love to connect with the seller

Remembering Charles Lasner on his 74th birthday.

I've dug my Spare Time Gizmos SBC6120 out of the closet and booted it up. It's been over 10 years since I've looked at this, and I don't know exactly how the 64MB CF card is configured. What is the '44' in the… More TYPE column, and what are the J5, J6, etc devices, and what are the names in parenthesis in the NAME column telling me (besides it doesn't know what they are...)?