old processor architectures [was Re: The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix - IEEE Spectrum]

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

> D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>> I still have some paper tapes for them.
>
> Anyone recall using the PDP-8 RIM loader?

Yeah. First you toggled in a very small machine language program from the
front panel switches. That loaded a paper tape with the real loader. Then
you could load the program.

That was ugly.

But not as ugly as debugging on the PDP-12 that Ryerson had, equipped with
4K 12-bit words of memory (at $1 a word). You'd load and run your program.
(see above). Lights would flash on the console. There would be great
activity from the LINC tape drives. Then after a long pause the program
would stop with one word in the centre of the CRT display:

                                NO

So much for informative error messages. When we phoned Dec about this,
they said we could get real error messages if we had an additional 4k
words of memory.

Peter

-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto
http://www.syscompdesign.com
USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator
647-839-0325

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