YADS - Yet Another DECtape Story

[Ed Nather]

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Knock not the linc-tape, you modern heathens -- it was gold in its time.
Not too many people know about the linc (laboratory instrument computer)
that was developed at MIT's Lincoln Lab more years ago than I like to
count.  The idea was to provide local computing power -- a sort of
workstation -- to run laboratory instruments.  To keep costs down it
was designed as a kit, to be constructed by the user (who would then,
perhaps, know how to fix it) with a compact instuction set (8 total)
and, for random access, a whole 1K of core.  Word length: 12 bits.
Designer: Wesley A. Clark.

But it needed offline storage, and drums were too expensive (disks? You
mean phonograph records?) hence the block-addressed, byte-wide format
on tape.  Blocks were re-writable; sounds just like the latest Sinclair,
doesn't it?  The 1K internal store:  if it was big enough for Univac ...

A lot of people didn't want to build kits, so Clark approached a local
firm that made plug-in boards, and got them to build the kits for the
fumble-fingered.  The outfit sold a few, got good responses, cleaned up
the design a bit (keeping the 12 bit format and 8 instructions) and,
viola`!  The PDP-8.  I think the outfit is still in business.

-- 

                                       Ed Nather
                                       ihnp4!{ut-sally,kpno}!utastro!nather
                                       Astronomy Dept., U. of Texas, Austin