FA: Dec Dgital PDP8/a Vintage 1976 Era PDP8 / A on eBay

From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sat Feb 15 18:06:00 2003

--- Stuart Johnson <stuart_at_stuartsjohnsonfamily.net> wrote:
> I know that some of the folks on the list (including myself) enjoy old
> DEC equipmen

True.

> The opening price is $250 US. I had not seen a picture of a PDP-8 /A
> before.

That one is nicely loaded. If I didn't have one just like it, I
might be tempted. Notable features include the KT8A MMU (not really
useful under OS/8, but if you want to play with RTS-8 it's kinda
nice), the RL8A, and most of all, the push-button front-panel.

About the only "standard" things it's missing are a 128KW MOS board
(instead of the two 32K boards), an RX8E, possibly a 4-port SLU
board (KL8A? KL8EJ?) and perhaps a parallel printer board (there were
several for either the LA180 or one of the daisy-wheel printers
that were common when the -8/a was sold as a WPS-8 machine).

I have an RL01 disk or two with OS/8 on it, but my -8/a has a
broken KM8A - when it's installed, the bus is locked up and I
don't get normal response from the front panel. When I remove
the KM8A, I can talk to the CPU and toggle in little programs
(in the lowest 4K). One of these days, I need to sit down and
debug that KM8A.

If I had a working KK8E, I could pull the KK8A/KM8A out. That's a
different kettle of fish (but at least I finally was able to dismantle
and repair my sticky circuit breaker)

Given a disk, that -8/a could make someone very happy. It has everything
else you'd need (except cables, probably ;-)

-ethan
Received on Sat Feb 15 2003 - 18:06:00 GMT