PDP-8 is a 12-bit minicomputer that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation.
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14 Facts About PDP-8
2.
The last commercial PDP-8 models introduced in 1979 are called "CMOS-8s", based on CMOS microprocessors.
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3.
Chief engineer who designed the initial version of the PDP-8 was Edson de Castro, who later founded Data General.
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4.
PDP-8 combines low cost, simplicity, expandability, and careful engineering for value.
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5.
PDP-8 was designed in part to handle contemporary telecommunications and text.
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6.
PDP-8 instructions have a 3-bit opcode, so there are only eight instructions.
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7.
Electronics of a basic PDP-8 CPU has only four 12-bit registers: the accumulator, program counter, memory-buffer register, and memory-address register.
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8.
Total sales figure for the PDP-8 family has been estimated at over 300, 000 machines.
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9.
PDP-8 is readily emulated, as its instruction set is much simpler than modern architectures.
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10.
Several software simulations of a PDP-8 are available on the Internet, as well as open-source hardware re-implementations.
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11.
Early PDP-8 systems were shipped with no pre-installed software; each time the PDP-8 was powered up, the user hand-entered instructions using a bank of 12 toggle switches.
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12.
Fair amount of user-donated software for the PDP-8 was available from DECUS, the Digital Equipment Corporation User Society, and often came with full source listings and documentation.
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13.
PDP-8 processor defined few of the IOT instructions, but simply provided a framework.
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14.
However, by this time, the PDP-8 was in decline, so very little standard software was modified to use these new features.
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