9 Jun
2025
9 Jun
'25
9:56 p.m.
Hello Noel,
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:39:52 -0400 (EDT)
Noel Chiappa <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
If that's your interest, PDP-11's are
absolutely _the_ way to go. The PDP-11
is _the_ machine that made UNIX. That choice has good points, and a very bad
point, though.
Buying a PDP-11 has for a long time been a dream of mine. To start my
collection of historical computers however I think I'm going get a UNIX
workstation.
Good points are that QBUS PDP-11's are pretty
easy to find, pretty small
(desktop PC-sized), and not very expensive. They're pretty robust, too - I
have a large stack of PDP-11 QBUS CPUs, and none of them had failed, as of the
last time that I powered them on.
Good to know. I was under the impression that all PDP-11s where hard to
find, expensive and often required advanced tinkering to get working.
I'll definitely will be looking into these Q-BUS computers. Thanks!
Does anyone know if anyone is making a QBUS mass
storage clone? Bridgham and
I were going to produce QBUS RK11/RP11 clone that used SD cards to hold the
bits. We got the prototype working, and it booted UNIX, but then I came down
with COVID and post-COVID myalgic encephalomyelitis, and that was the end of
that.
I am sorry to hear that you had to deal with those health problems and I
sincerely hope you are now doing better.
Cheers,
Vicente
vicente(a)collares.ca