PDP-7
| PDP-7 | |
 A PDP-7 in Oslo, Norway | |
| Manufacturer: | Digital Equipment Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year Introduced: | 1965 |
| Word Size: | 18 |
The DEC PDP-7 is a minicomputer produced by Digital Equipment Corporation. Introduced in 1965, the first to use their Flip-Chip® technology, with a cost of only $72,000 USD, it was cheap but powerful. The PDP-7 was the third of Digital's 18-bit machines, with essentially the same instruction set architecture as the PDP-4 and the PDP-9. It was the first wire-wrapped PDP.
In 1969, Ken Thompson wrote the first UNIX system in assembly language on a PDP-7, then named Unics as a somewhat treacherous pun on Multics, as the operating system for Space Travel, a game which required graphics to depict the motion of the planets. A PDP-7 was also the development system used during the development of MUMPS at MGH in Boston a few years earlier.
There are a few remaining PDP-7 still in operable condition, along with one under restoration in Oslo, Norway.
Emulation
The PDP-7 can be emulated with SIMH. DECSys and some other software is available and can run on the emulator.
External links
- "The famous PDP-7 comes to the rescue" (Bell Labs' Unix history)
- http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/1964-3.htm PDP-7 entry from Year 1964 in the DIGITAL Computing Timeline
- http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~toresbe/dec PDP-7 restoration project located in Oslo, Norway
