PDP-10

computer Programmed Data Processor model 10.

The series of mainframes from DEC that made time-sharing

real. It looms large in hacker folklore because of its

adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing

facilities and research labs, including the MIT AI Lab,

Stanford, and CMU. Some aspects of the instruction set

(most notably the bit-field instructions) are still considered

unsurpassed.

The PDP-10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines

(descendants of the PDP-11) when DEC recognised that the

PDP-10 and VAX product lines were competing with each other

and decided to concentrate its software development effort on

the more profitable VAX. The machine was finally dropped from

DEC's line in 1983, following the failure of the Jupiter

Project at DEC to build a viable new model. (Some attempts by

other companies to market clones came to nothing; see Foonly

and Mars.) This event spelled the doom of ITS and the

technical cultures that had spawned the original JargonFile, but by mid-1991 it had become something of a badge of

honourable old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth

on a PDP-10.

See TOPS-10, AOS, BLT, DDT, DPB, EXCH, HAKMEM,

JFCL, LDB, pop, push.

news:alt.sys.pdp10

[Was the PDP-10 a mini or a mainframe?]

(2001-01-05)