PDP-10 - 1 definition found
Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) 
PDP-10 n. [Programmed Data Processor model 10] The machine that made
timesharing real. It looms large in hacker folklore because of its
adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing facilities and
research labs, including the MIT AI Lab, Stanford, and CMU. Some aspects
of the instruction set (most notably the bit-field instructions) are
still considered unsurpassed. The 10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX
machines (descendants of the PDP-11) when DEC recognized that the 10
and VAX product lines were competing with each other and decided to
concentrate its software development effort on the more profitable VAX.
The machine was finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983, following the
failure of the Jupiter Project at DEC to build a viable new model. (Some
attempts by other companies to market clones came to nothing; see
Foonly and Mars.) This event spelled the doom of {ITS} and the
technical cultures that had spawned the original Jargon File, but by
mid-1991 it had become something of a badge of honorable old-timerhood
among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10. See {TOPS-10},
{ITS}, BLT, DDT, EXCH, HAKMEM, LDB, pop, push. See also
`http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/'.
|
|
|