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PDP-20
PDP-10 n.
[Programmed Data Processor model 10] The
machine that made timesharing real. It looms large in hacker
folklore because of its adoption in the mid-1970s by many
university computing facilities and research labs, including the
MIT AI Lab, Stanford, and CMU. Some aspects of the instruction
set (most notably the bit-field instructions) are still considered
unsurpassed. The 10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines
(descendants of the PDP-11) when DEC recognized that the 10
and VAX product lines were competing with each other and decided to
concentrate its software development effort on the more profitable
VAX. The machine was finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983,
following the failure of the Jupiter Project at DEC to build a
viable new model. (Some attempts by other companies to market
clones came to nothing; see Foonly and Mars.) This event
spelled the doom of ITS and the technical cultures that had
spawned the original Jargon File, but by mid-1991 it had become
something of a badge of honorable old-timerhood among hackers to
have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10. See TOPS-10, ITS,
BLT, DDT, EXCH, HAKMEM, LDB,
pop, push. See also http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
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