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From: Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
Date: 26 Feb 2025 19:51:56 -0500
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

> On Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:19:41 -0800, John Ames wrote:

>> On Tue, 25 Feb 2025 23:02:32 -0000 (UTC)
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

>>> I wonder why DEC's 18-bit range weren't more popular; though I think they
>>> had less consistency between members of the range than DEC's other product
>>> families.

>> I suspect that, in the computer market of the early '60s, they ended up
>> as the awkward middle child  ...

Mr. Ames's suspicion is unfounded.  The 18 bit systems were neither awkward nor
unsuccessful.

> Still, they were the product line that launched DEC's computer career, with
> the PDP-1.

Since DEC's original intent was to build small computers (at their founding in
1957), that's rather a fatuous statement.

The choice of 18 bits was related to the scientific computing standard of the
day, in which large computers used a 36 bit word.

See the relationship?

>> ... small labs/offices/embedded applications
>> could get a basic computer cheaper with the -12 ...

> Cost was certainly a factor in putting up with the compromises. The 12-bit
> line was clearly a cut-down derivative of the 18-bit line. In those days, all
> hardware was expensive, but the 12-bit machines less so.

In fact, the PDP-5 (DEC's third computer and first 12 bit system) was
originally designed as a data capture front end for the 18 bit PDP-4, in a
nuclear control application for the Canadians.  Cf. Bell's _Computer Engineering_.

-- 
Rich Alderson					  news@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen