[rescue] Seeing a pdp-8 in person...

[Steven M Jones]

Earl D. Baugh Jr. wrote:
> So, where would one go and see a PDP like this? I'm in Atlanta,
> and the only place I've read of (aside from a few rescuer's houses)
> would be the Boston Computer Museum and perhaps one other place
> in SF.
>   

The Computer Museum in Boston shut down years ago and most of the
collection was shipped out to storage at Moffett Field, eventually
becoming the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. A quick check
of Wikipedia tells me that a few elements wound up at the Museum of
Science in East Cambridge (Boston, basically).

I highly, highly recommend a visit to the Computer History Museum if you
find yourself anywhere near Silicon Valley. Preferably on a day when
there are docents present to give you the stories behind the exhibits in
the Visible Storage displays. And if you're very lucky, you'll hit a day
when some of the team that restored their PDP-1 is giving demos...
(http://www.computerhistory.org and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum)

If you can make it to New Jersey the weekend of June 9th, you could
attend the Vintage Computer Festival East 2007
(http://www.vintage.org/2007/east/). They'll have some manner of DEC PDP
gear present, though I can't say if they'll have an -8/m or not.

If you want to see one closer to home, the only thing I can think of is
to get on the mailing lists over at www.classiccmp.org and see who's in
the neighborhood that wouldn't mind showing it off.

And until you can see one in person, there's a scarily huge collection
of links that Sellam Ismail's put together at
http://www.vintage.org/links.php for hours of online entertainment.

Share and Enjoy!
--S.