What (who) is PDP-10 - definition

MAINFRAME COMPUTER FAMILY

DECsystem-10; DECSystem-10; Pdp 10; KA-10; KA10; KI10; KI-10; KL-10; KL10; KS10; KS-10; PDP 10; Pdp10; DecSystem-10; DEC-10; PDP10; DEC PDP-10; DEC 10; MAXC; DECsystem 10

PDP-10

<computer> Programmed Data Processor model 10. The series of mainframes from DEC that made time-sharing 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 PDP-10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines (descendants of the PDP-11) when DEC recognised that the PDP-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 honourable old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10. See TOPS-10, AOS, BLT, DDT, DPB, EXCH, HAKMEM, JFCL, LDB, pop, push. news:alt.sys.pdp10 [Was the PDP-10 a mini or a mainframe?] (2001-01-05)

Programmed Data Processor

SERIES OF MINICOMPUTERS MADE AND MARKETED BY THE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION FROM 1957 TO 1990

Programmable Data Processor; PDP-3; PDP 3; PDP-2; PDP 2; PDP 4; PDP 9; PDP 12; PDP 14; PDP 15; PDP 16; DEC PDP; PDP-H; DEC PDP-H

Programmed Data Processor (PDP), referred to by some customers, media and authors as "Programmable Data Processor,"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Data_Processor

Programmed Data Processor

SERIES OF MINICOMPUTERS MADE AND MARKETED BY THE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION FROM 1957 TO 1990

Programmable Data Processor; PDP-3; PDP 3; PDP-2; PDP 2; PDP 4; PDP 9; PDP 12; PDP 14; PDP 15; PDP 16; DEC PDP; PDP-H; DEC PDP-H

<computer> (PDP) Early (1960's?) {Digital Equipment Corporation} family of minicomputers. The best known ranges were the PDP-10 and PDP-11. PAL was the {assembly language}. (1997-11-21)

Wikipedia

PDP-10

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, especially as the TOPS-10 operating system became widely used.

The PDP-10's architecture is almost identical to that of DEC's earlier PDP-6, sharing the same 36-bit word length and slightly extending the instruction set (but with improved hardware implementation). Some aspects of the instruction set are unusual, most notably the byte instructions, which operate on bit fields of any size from 1 to 36 bits inclusive, according to the general definition of a byte as a contiguous sequence of a fixed number of bits.

The PDP-10 was found in many university computing facilities and research labs during the 1970s, the most notable being Harvard University's Aiken Computation Laboratory, MIT's AI Lab and Project MAC, Stanford's SAIL, Computer Center Corporation (CCC), ETH (ZIR), and Carnegie Mellon University. Its main operating systems, TOPS-10 and TENEX, were used to build out the early ARPANET. For these reasons, the PDP-10 looms large in early hacker folklore.

Projects to extend the PDP-10 line were eclipsed by the success of the unrelated VAX superminicomputer, and the cancellation of the PDP-10 line was announced in 1983. According to reports, DEC sold "about 1500 DECsystem-10s by the end of 1980."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-10

Pronunciation examples for PDP-10

1. In the basement is the only PDP-10 still active and on the Internet.

Swordfish (2001)