In my limited experience with the PDP-8E, memory seems very difficult to
come by. I'd give my eye teeth for a 32k semiconductor board, but both
semiconductor and core seems to be nowhere.
Jay West
-----Original Message-----
From: Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks_at_yahoo.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, April 19, 1999 7:05 AM
Subject: How scarce (valuable) is core for the PDP-8?
>
>I have a chance to buy a 4kW core stack for the PDP-8/i (-8/L). It's
>more than I want to pay, $100. My question is, what are these things
>going for these days? I don't really *need* it. The guy selling it
>has more core than this that he saved from a "recycler", but he's in
>it for the money, not out of a love for classic machines. Most of his
>memory, he sells to people who want something to stick on the shelf and
>"ooh" and "aah" at. :-(
>
>So... for those people who have been trying to get core over the past year
>or two, what's it costing? I'm trying to decide if I want to grab this
>stack to put into my -8/i and bring it up to 8kW, an entirely optional
>project (I have all the other parts I would need for the upgrade from a
>PDP-8/L that I got in 1982 that was sold as parts-only, bad core, and most
>of the I/O and part of the CPU missing).
>
>I think he's charging too much, but maybe I'm disconnected with the
>current pricing. I do know that if I pass on it, there are several
>other people who are waiting for this exact piece, so it'll be sold
>one way or the other when I answer him.
>
>OTOH, I do have a broken (20-30 fractured cores) -8/L stack that I've
>contemplated repairing. It's a parity stack, so I can scavenge wire
>and cores from the parity plane (or just use the parity plane intact
>as another bit, then use one pad of broken core to repair the other,
>less damaged pad of broken core). Any thoughts out there on core repair?
>It's 1968 DEC core with, AFAIK a seperate sense and inhibit wire, which
>is both good and bad - good because the cores are larger than three-wire
>core, bad because I'd have to thread up, down and two diagonals.
>
>Of course, I could always sell the broken plane to a collector and use
>the money to fund part of this working stack. So many options. In terms
>of time spent, it's cheaper for me to work a few hours and earn the money
>that the core pirate wants; in terms of lessons learned, repairing a
30-year-
>old core stack would be a big thrill, *if* it worked.
>
>Thanks,
>
>-ethan
>
>
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Received on Mon Apr 19 1999 - 08:52:09 BST