PDP-6

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PDP-6, (Programmed Data Processor-6) DEC's first 36-bit personal mainframe computer developed and manufactured from 1963, and shipped since 1964, influential for the later PDP-10 with almost identical instruction sets. Addressing remained 18-bit, as in earlier DEC machines, allowing for a 256 Kiword main magnetic core memory, optionally with 16 words of fast memory constructed from discrete transistor flip-flops. Output could be displayed on a DEC 340 display.

Already supporting Time-sharing, the operating system used was an early version of what later became TOPS-10, and several sites made custom versions of the system, available as source code. The PDP-6 with serial number 2 was donated to MIT's Project MAC, where it was used to develop the ITS operating system. Richard Greenblatt et al. developed the Mac Hack VI chess program entirely in MIDAS, the PDP-6 macro assembler.

=Photos=

Bell and Kotok
Gordon Bell and Alan Kotok at PDP-6 in 1964

Robert Q
First tournament game by a computer, Carl Wagner (2190) - Robert Q, January 21, 1967 Allen Moulton and R. William Gosper operating "Robert Q" on a PDP-6

=See also=
 * HAKMEM 169 to count the ones in a PDP-6/PDP-10 36-bit word
 * HAKMEM 175 by Bill Gosper for Subsets with equal Cardinality
 * IBM 7090
 * Honeywell 6000
 * Mac Hack VI
 * PDP-1
 * PDP-8
 * PDP-10
 * PDP-11

=External Links=
 * PDP-6 from Wikipedia
 * Programmed Data Processor from Wikipedia
 * PDP-6 by Ed Thelen
 * 36-bit Timeline from The Computer History Museum
 * archive.computerhistory.org - /resources/still-image/DEC/PDP-6/ from The Computer History Museum
 * archive.computerhistory.org - /resources/text/DEC/pdp-6/ from The Computer History Museum
 * PDP-6 arithmetic processor 166 : instruction manual. Volume 1 from The Computer History Museum
 * /pdf/dec/pdp6 from bitsavers.org
 * Moby Memory by Lawrence J. Krakauer
 * Bits by Lawrence J. Krakauer
 * DSpace@MIT : PDP-6 LISP
 * DSpace@MIT : Incorporating MIDAS Routines into PDP-6 LISP
 * Digital Equipment Corp PDP-6 1964

=References=

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