[Leica] first computers (from SD card thread)

[jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

2007-03-18-12:57:47 Adam Bridge:
> My first "real" computer was a DEC PDP-11/23. It had 64K(!) of RAM and
> a huge, I say HUGE, as in VAST 5 MB hard drive. Of course the entire
> operating system footprint was 4 KB, 8 KB if I elected to use the
> non-overlayed version.

Yeah... I remember in my early teens cutting my teeth on a PDP-11/40,
with a massive 28K of (I think) real core memory.  With all that room,
we could support eight simultaneous users running RSTS V4A-12.  And yes,
this was all off an RK05 disk pack.  If I needed to back something up,
and didn't want to fight with slowly punching a long and unreliable
spaghetti strand of paper tape on a Teletype, I could beg my way into
The Actual Machine Room and mount a DECtape (which highly advanced
supply one could buy right in the nearby Rutgers College store, because
they had big old DEC-10s).

Eventually, I got to be one of the acolytes who cared for this machine.
My fingers still remember the front-panel boot codes, I think.

(Set 173100 (octal); Load Address; set 177406; Boot)

This started in... 1974 or so?

 -Jeff M