Anyone familiar with the PDP-11?

[tevion5]

I like dumpster diving for old tech around UCD campus time to time. I've gotten a Quicksilver out of it last year, so I've only become more addicted!

But today outside the engineering building I spotted a Stella CIM PDP-11 siting on top of an old fridge. It looks out of place beside the 2002 era Dells. I googled it to discover it was used in the 70's for c programming and compiling, even used to make Atari games in some instances. It influenced the x86 architecture yada yada...

Basically, is it worth saving? I notified the little computer museum on campus.

Any info on this item would be appreciated. Cheers!

 

[David Schmidt]

There are complete sites dedicated to DEC equipment; an entire generation of geeks grew up with them. But what you have there is not a DEC PDP11. They might look something more like this:

What you have may interface to one, might be a modem for one, or I don't know what... but it's unlikely to *be* one.

 

[nebo1ss]

There are complete sites dedicated to DEC equipment; an entire generation of geeks grew up with them. But what you have there is not a DEC PDP11. They might look something more like this:

What you have may interface to one, might be a modem for one, or I don't know what... but it's unlikely to *be* one.

This brings back memories. The first computer I ever got involved with was a PDP8 in 1968.

 

[tevion5]

There are complete sites dedicated to DEC equipment; an entire generation of geeks grew up with them. But what you have there is not a DEC PDP11......What you have may interface to one, might be a modem for one, or I don't know what... but it's unlikely to *be* one.

Ahh right! Well excuse my ignorance. The oldest machine I own is an Apple II Plus so even that's too high tech for these machines. Indeed, now that I look at it closely, the lack of switches does make it unlikely to be a CPU of any kind. It also lists PDP above modem, so this must have connected to the PDP as a device alright. I'm happy to learn something anytime. That image you posted looks like a very cool piece of kit. Wouldn't mind putting one on a rack in my place. See what I could network it with.

 

[MacTech68]

I'm not certain but looking up those keywords reveals an interface module for intercommunictions.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-c6oCAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA189&ots=CPs_gGBnDn&dq=stella cim pdp-11&pg=PA189#v=onepage&q=stella cim pdp-11&f=false

So, for one of those organizations that are keenly restoring these old machines (and I've seen several websites detailing these projects) might be very interested in getting their hands on it.

EDIT: A nice overview of what the STELLA project was:

http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/ca/technology/networking/p005.htm

EDIT 2: EGAD! See the last picture on this page!

http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/ca/technology/networking/p006.htm

Looks the same to me (Except the model number may denote a GE4080 vs PDP11 interface)