How many PDP-12's are there now?

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Wed Jan 15 12:52:00 2003

> How many of them are there in existence?

Quite a lot. It is a very cool computer for a hacker - a classic mini
with all sorts of bells and whistles (in the case of the earlier LINC-8,
literally). Guys kept them. At RCS a while back, we figured there are 20
or 25 known examples left. Since then, a few more have popped up. This is
a much better than average survival rate.

Quite a few PDP-12s are in the hands of relatively quiet collectors. For
example, one man that came to RCS used to work on -12s for a living, and
has four of them (three are blue faced Clinical-12s). He knew his PDP-12s
inside and out - literally. He was more or less touch typing the switch
register (at great speed) on our machine, putting it thru all sorts of
tests. He even could base a machine's age on the font used on the
front panel. Amazing.
 
> If anyone wants to send me info, I'll volunteer to collect and put it
> up on my website (I won't put email addresses or other incriminating
> evidence unless you want me to :-)).

Well, it is no secret that RCS has three PDP-12s, one of which is a fancy
"super" 12, and a LINC-8. Two of the -12s actually belong to members -
only the LINC-8 and one PDP-12 are "corporate". I have a LINC-8 as
well (which was to be traded - not sure now), but it is fairly gutted.
 
William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Wed Jan 15 2003 - 12:52:00 GMT