Terak 8510a

From: Alexios Chouchoulas <alexios_at_vennea.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed Jun 11 19:47:01 1997

  Oh yes! I finally own a little bit of a PDP. The Department of AI at the
university here just disposed of some of its old hardware and I ended up
with a Terak 8510a with extra floppy (8512) and monitor, keyboard (8532).
Lovely!!!

  It's a really neat and fast machine. FYI, it has a four-slot backplane
with an LSI-11 board (with FPU), 28kw of MOS RAM, a brilliant framebuffer
card (640x240 text and 320x240 graphics at the same time -- the card mixes
both modes on the same screen and allows hardware panning, smooth scrolling
and other effects), Shugart floppy interface, RS-232/current loop and some
other strange card (probably for controlling some robotic device of sorts --
useful).

  It came with all of its documentation (disgustingly complete, including
business reply card with `READ THIS NOW' written at the back, brochures,
reference cards, RT-11 manuals, Shugart tech ref (so you want to take apart
your Shugart 8" drive's head assembly?), etc). Also a set of original
red-and-purple(?) PDP-11 manuals for RT-11. And to top it off, there were a
few 1978-1979 DEC PDP manuals for various architectures. They're in almost
mint condition, but the paper is really showing its age. GOOD documentation,
though.

  Software-wise, there are both of the common OSs for the Terak: RT-11 and
UCSD P-System/Pascal (haven't worked with this in ten years, but my fingers
still remember how to press 'F','L',':' really fast). Lots of languages,
including Logo, BASIC and Prolog (it *was* a DAI machine, you see).

  The 12" monitor is rock steady and displays a clear image in P3 phosphor
(sort-of paper white) and the keyboard is refreshingly 70s with nice clunky
keys that, however, are really comfortable for touch typing once you get
used to them.

  Oh yes, I also got a boxed TI-99/4A with all its manuals and a memory
expansion box, but that is probably too common for you folks in the States
and certainly too mundane in comparison to the Terak.


  I'm a happy man. :-)


PS: Oh, the department has quite a nice collection of old stuff, including a
    PERQ that just seemed to attract a lot of drool. They're keeping it,
    though -- it's going to a real museum (not computer related, though).
    All in all, I think I must have looked too much like a kiddie in a sweet
    shop.

--------------------------- ,o88,o888o,,o888o. -------------------------------
Alexios Chouchoulas '88 ,88' ,88' alexios_at_vennea.demon.co.uk
The Unpronounceable One ,o88oooo88ooooo88oo, axc_at_dcs.ed.ac.uk
Received on Wed Jun 11 1997 - 19:47:01 BST