Hi Clem,
Hmm, I don’t remember whether the style guide addressed that. In the docs for RSX-11M and such I always wrote it “PDP-11”, that is upper case with the dash. I do remember the logo on the machine as always lower case with no dash. The PDP-8 had the same style logo. And you’re right about seeing the lower case on the cover of the handbooks. I have never seen the lower case with the dash or the upper case without it. I don’t think I still have my copy of the style guide. Maybe I’ll take a look around my archives for it.
What a fun question to be thinking about .
Janet
From: Clem Cole
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 9:47 AM
To: Janet Egan
Subject: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and Lower case at DEC
I'm part of The Unix Historical Society (TUHS) mailing list and a topic came up that I thought you might be able to shed some light on. The observation was that 'DEC seemed to have a schizophrenic attitude to wrt to use of upper and lower case WRT to the PDP-11 brand,' i.e. sometimes using "PDP-11" and sometimes "pdp11" (but I note rarely if ever PDP11 or pdp-11) . For instance, the logo on the system itself was all lower: PDP-11/40 but DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; but when used on the places like the cover could be either e.g. the "pdp11 peripherals handbook" to transcribe the cover exactly but it uses upper case "PDP-11" several times on pg 1-1 and the same on the binding. But I could not find examples of pdp-11 or PDP11, i.e. if all lower it was with the dash or all upper without.
Do you remember if there were rules or guidelines and if so what they might have been?
