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Cyhist Dec 06 1996 B
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Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 08:38:21 -0700
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Steve Jones <sjones@centum.utulsa.edu>
Subject: Re: CYHIST PDP 8's
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
When I was a high school student in a suburb of Chicago (Skokie, to be precise) in the mid-70s, I recall that we had a PDP 8 (PDP 8e maybe?) in one of the three high schools in our system. It was at Niles West high school, and we time-shared, but I don't quite remember how the connections between schools were established. We had an IBM teletype keyboard with attached paper tape reader (I have no idea what model) and one way to achieve status at the "computer club" at my own school (Niles North) was to have the biggest roll of paper tape code. (I probably still have a few at my father's house -- they were well-guarded and quite valuable at the time!)
Essentially what I think most all of us did was use the PDP to write things in BASIC, usually games ("lunar lander"-type things were big). I recall visiting Niles West and looking at the computer, holding a radio near it, etc., and I believe on the same field trip we went to Northwestern University, where someone had "Space War" running in a computer lab, and, well, the PDP and the ol' teletype lost its attraction. Goodbye BASIC, goodbye tic-tac-toe...
In retrospect I feel extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with a PDP at that time, and in high school. I don't think any of us knew, in fact, how lucky we were, judging by the mundane things we did with it!
Steve Jones
Sj
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Steve Jones <sjones@centum.utulsa.edu>
Subject: Re: CYHIST PDP 8's
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
When I was a high school student in a suburb of Chicago (Skokie, to be precise) in the mid-70s, I recall that we had a PDP 8 (PDP 8e maybe?) in one of the three high schools in our system. It was at Niles West high school, and we time-shared, but I don't quite remember how the connections between schools were established. We had an IBM teletype keyboard with attached paper tape reader (I have no idea what model) and one way to achieve status at the "computer club" at my own school (Niles North) was to have the biggest roll of paper tape code. (I probably still have a few at my father's house -- they were well-guarded and quite valuable at the time!)
Essentially what I think most all of us did was use the PDP to write things in BASIC, usually games ("lunar lander"-type things were big). I recall visiting Niles West and looking at the computer, holding a radio near it, etc., and I believe on the same field trip we went to Northwestern University, where someone had "Space War" running in a computer lab, and, well, the PDP and the ol' teletype lost its attraction. Goodbye BASIC, goodbye tic-tac-toe...
In retrospect I feel extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with a PDP at that time, and in high school. I don't think any of us knew, in fact, how lucky we were, judging by the mundane things we did with it!
Steve Jones
Sj
______________________________________________________________________
