Columbia University Computing History   

The Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1

DEC PDP-1
The DEC PDP-1; Photo: nersc.gov/~deboni (defunct).
The Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1, 1960, with Type 30 Direct View Display, a 16-inch diameter CRT with 1024 × 1024 addressable points and a light pen: the first graphics terminal and DEC's first general-purpose computer. I am not aware that Columbia University ever had a PDP-1, but I know first-hand it had a PDP-4 (Physics, Pupin Hall), PDP-7 (Electrical Engineering, Mudd) — both of these went to the dumpster despite my efforts to have them transferred to the Computer History Museum — and numerous PDP-8s, PDP-11s, and even a PDP-12 or two. The PDP-7 was the subject of my graduate computer architecture class with Ted Bashkow, and it was hands-on. I saw a fully operational PDP-1 at the Digital Equipment Corporation museum in Marlboro, MA, about 1980 (this, after many moves and changes of hands, would become the Computer History Museum.
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Columbia University Computing History Frank da Cruz / fdc@columbia.edu This page created: July 2002 Revised: 3 April 2021