Talk:DECSYSTEM-20

PDP-20

Since this computer never existed, I think reference to it should be incorporated into the article PDP-10. Or deleted altogether. - Fernkes 01:22, Sep 29, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, I disagree. It might be more appropriate to move the page to DECSYSTEM-20, and such a page deserves to exist (there are some significant internal hardware differences), but even then we'd have to have a link from PDP-20 (under the Wikipedia rule that working names never stop working). Noel 18:34, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, to weigh into an extremely old discussion, I think we need to reverse the redirects: currently DECSYSTEM-20 (which existed) redirects to PDP-20 (which didn't); this is silly. Unfortunately, to do this properly takes an admin, which I am not. - IMSoP 02:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't require an admin; I just did it. --Brouhaha 21:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Minicomputer?

I question whether the machine should ba called a "minicomputer". I think that it should qualify as a "mainframe computer" — unsigned comment by TenexHacker on 20:13, 2006-10-07 (UTC)

You can question it all you want. Olsen and everybody at DEC knew they were making Minicomputers. No DEC machine, ever, was a mainframe. 77.127.166.197 (talk) 08:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

To the author 77.127.166.197 above, DECSYSTEM-20 computers had a PDP-11 to independently handle terminal input and its storage channels executed independently from the central processor as well. Further its computational rate of 1.6 MIPS and memory capacity of 4 MW (~20 MB) was in the range of contemporary mainframes, though toward the lower end. The case for calling it a mainframe is solid. It definitely wasn't a minicomputer, the definition of which being a system where the central processor handles all IO directly. Your stridency is misplaced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.159.213.58 (talk) 12:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

DECsystem-10

“PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled DECsystem-10 as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11.”

Might anyone have an actual reference for that claim? DEC named (almost) all of their computers “PDP-”, and the different numbers seemed an adequate way to distinguish each model from the others. Was the DECsystem-10 name really invented because someone at DEC thought there would be confusion between PDP-10 and PDP-11? 76.100.23.153 (talk) 19:50, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The DECsystem-10 article suggests that the PDP-10 was “eventually” renamed the DECsystem-10. Rather than rename the PDP-10 w/TOPS-10 because of the later PDP-11, could it instead have been renamed to avoid confusion with the later PDP-10 w/TOPS-20? Those two, using the same KL-10 processor hardware, seem much more likely to be a source of confusion. 76.100.23.153 (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Who are the 2 subjects of the photo

Is it Bill Gates in the photo at the top of the frame? Avindratalk / contribs 03:49, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Bill Gates and Paul Allen; the picture appears in, among other places, this article (in the (Australian) Daily Telegraph). They worked on PDP-10s at various points in their youth and early careers; as PDP-10#Cancellation and influence says:

Bill Gates and Paul Allen originally wrote Altair BASIC using an Intel 8080 simulator running on a PDP-10 at Harvard University. Allen had modified the PDP-10 assembler to become a cross assembler for the 8080 chip. They founded Microsoft shortly after.

And the picture in which the other picture is on the wall is of an orange-painted PDP-10 :-) (a/k/a a DECSYSTEM-20) at the Living Computer Museum, which was founded by Paul Allen. Guy Harris (talk) 05:58, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I came to know of DEC through the UNIX OS. Fascinating to hear it played a role in the Microsoft story too. Avindratalk / contribs 19:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

More than one role. Guy Harris (talk) 21:29, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Physical differences

Hi, @Maury Markowitz!

I'm reverting this edit of yours. The reason is that your claim that the only "physical" change were a different paint seemingly contradicts the sources - at least if one considers changes of hardware as "physical", which I (among others) do. Best, JoergenB (talk) 18:05, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. For starters, a rather obvious difference was the height of the cabinets. Lars Brinkhoff (talk) 07:07, 8 September 2022 (UTC)