At 02:35 PM 6/20/02 -0700, you wrote:
>
>According to this FAQ:
>
>http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dec-faq/pdp8-models/section-2.html
>
>...the PDP-8 was OEM'd to a company called Foxboro Corporation that
>re-badged it as the PCP-88.
>
>Has anyone ever seen a PCP-88? I would assume it is functionally and
>physically equivalent to a DEC PDP-8?
No; never seen one; it was probably used for process control,
though; Foxboro has a long standing reputation as maker of
process automation equipment. In fact, the first pneumatic
proportional+integral process controller (the Stabilog) was invented by
Clesson E. Mason at Foxboro in 1929; he essentially did to
the pneumatic proportional valve what Harold Stephen Black did
to the broadband regenerative telephone amplifier a couple of years
before: they both linearized and stabilized the entire range
of operation of the devices that they were working with by
means of negative feedback.
I think that the Stabilog qualifies as one of the most
important analog computers of all time. It made possible
things such as huge refineries, huge ammonium nitrate plants
and the mega-process industries in general.
I remember seeing an ad about it and about pneumatic instrumentation
of the time; it said something like "control your whole factory
at the speed of sound! ". :-) .
carlos.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo_at_nospammers.ieee.org
Received on Fri Jun 21 2002 - 09:03:48 BST