On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Brian Chase wrote:
> Also, to keep things on topic, does BART still use any PDP-8 systems? I
> read someplace, probably a few years ago now, that they used PDP-8s for
> their control systems.
They were supposedly all replaced in the early 1990s. My guess is that
they may have some systems still warehoused. I used to see this one guy
at the local hamfests who was the scruffiest, grungiest, most unpleasant
looking throwback from the early 1970s you'd ever laid eyes on, who I
was told supposedly was a computer technician for BART. So one day I
asked him about the PDP-8s and he said they were long gone (this was
probably in 1999 or thereabouts). I related this story to a fellow
collector who speculated that this guy may not want people to know there
are still PDP-8s somewhere in BART storage, which is a good point.
I knew the guy who re-designed the software for the marquees at the
stations in the early 1990s, and he said he they were driven by PDP-8
systems.
So who knows :)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Tue Mar 05 2002 - 03:21:49 GMT