Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> The general consensus that I am aware of is that the PDP-8 created the
> "minicomputer" class.
Perhaps putting the cart before the horse, but I think the reason the -8
is considerd the first "minicomputer" is the sheer number sold. As has
already been mentioned similar machines existed before with somehat
similar performance or price points but the -8 realy caught on and that
is what is remembered. Who can recall the story of the coining of the
term "minicomputer"?
Here in France we had a machine very similar to the Monrobot XI, it was
called the CAB 500. Just the other day I was talking to someone who, for
his PhD thesis project, interfaced that machine to a physics experiment.
The CAB 500 was a drum based machine, and very interesting. It had a
language called PAF which is extremely reminiscient of BASIC despite
being some 5 years earlier. Unlike BASIC, PAF was designed so that its
key words could be easily changed to different languages and on the fly
during one progam, a feature I have not seen in any other language.
For french reading members see :
http://www.aconit.org/hbp/CAB500 we are continuing to develop that site
as new information appears.
-- hbp
Received on Wed Feb 26 2003 - 17:37:06 GMT