Computermuseum der Fakultät Informatik                           german

pdp8/s

Type:         PDP8/S                            <<<    ***    >>>    ^^^
Manufacturer: Digital Equipment Corp.
Technique:    discrete transistors (R-Modules)
              magnetic core memory 4096W * 13Bit
Year:         1967
Price:        below $10000.-



The PDP8-Computer was the world's most common Microcomputer. It was designed
with the goal in mind, to offer a computer for less then $10000. It is built
with discrete transistors, the same technique as the classic PDP8, which also
is a 2nd-generation computer.
To keep the price down, the parts of the PDP8/S were designed bit serial. The
ALU consists of a 1-bit adder, the datapaths between registers are also 1 bit
wide. The memory with a word size of 12 bit + parity bit and the I/O-Bus, as
well as the operation codes were implemented in parallel.
Logic levels are 0V for logical 0 and -3V for logical 1.

As usual with new aquisitions in the museum it doesn't quite work yet,
so we are busy with repairs.

Things are starting to look better: Except for minor glitches in the frontpanel
the machine is up and running again and we are designing an interface for the
Teletype.