Columbia University Computing History   

DECsystem 1090

The DECsystem-10 was the older sibling of the DECSYSTEM-20, of which we had six at Columbia U between 1977 and 1988. The DEC-20 was capable of running DEC-10 software, but not vice-versa and, indeed, much of the software that came with DEC-20 ran in DEC-10 "compatibility mode".

The Retro-Computing Society of RI caption for this photo: These are the three cabinets that comprise the KL10 processor and the six 256KW core memory cabinets. The tall cabinets span about 23 feet. A pdp-11/34-based remote station can be seen at the far end of the row. Behind the band printer there is a general purpose parallel interface cabinet.