PDP-3

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Revision as of 07:17, 29 July 2023 by Larsbrinkhoff (talk | contribs) (PDP-3 "sold" but two PDP-1 delivered.)
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The PDP-3 was an early computer from DEC, described as roughly a 36-bit version of the PDP-1. Supposedly, only one was ever built.

From Gordon Bell's book Computer Engineering - A DEC View of Hardware Systems Design: "DEC also never built a PDP-3, although one was designed on paper as a 36-bit machine. [...] In 1960 a customer (Scientific Engineering Institute, Waltham, Massachusetts) built a PDP-3. It was later dismantled and given to M.I.T.: as of 1974, it was up and running in Oregon."

According to Gordon Bell's oral history, the PDP-3 was designed on paper and sold to the Air Force Cambridge Research Lab, U.S. Hanscom field. Since DEC at the time didn't have the resources to build a new 36-bit machine, they persuaded the customer to take two PDP-1's instead.

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