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.
