Sujet : Re: The joy of FORTRAN
De : ldo (at) *nospam* nz.invalid (Lawrence D'Oliveiro)
Groupes : alt.folklore.computers comp.os.linux.miscDate : 26. Feb 2025, 00:48:15
Autres entêtes
Organisation : A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID : <vplkru$27ttj$2@dont-email.me>
References : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
User-Agent : Pan/0.162 (Pokrosvk)
On Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:19:41 -0800, John Ames wrote:
On Tue, 25 Feb 2025 23:02:32 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
I wonder why DEC’s 18-bit range weren’t more popular; though I think
they had less consistency between members of the range than DEC’s other
product families.
I suspect that, in the computer market of the early '60s, they ended up
as the awkward middle child ...
Still, they were the product line that launched DEC’s computer career,
with the PDP-1.
... small labs/offices/embedded applications
could get a basic computer cheaper with the -12 ...
Cost was certainly a factor in putting up with the compromises. The 12-bit
line was clearly a cut-down derivative of the 18-bit line. In those days,
all hardware was expensive, but the 12-bit machines less so.
…