https://obsolescence.dev/index.html Classic Computer Replicas --------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer History Preserved In Fully Functional Time Capsules Start * Home * Completed Replicas + PiDP-8 + PiDP-11 + PiDP-10 + Soon: PiDP-1 + Soon: Whirlwind + Older projects o KIM Uno o Cosmac Elf on KIM Uno * Special Topics + ITS Reconstruction Project + Our approach to replicas * Newsletter + December 2024 * About Us Welcome to Obsolescence Guaranteed! After World War II, computers evolved with amazing speed, discovering the path to modern computing. The pioneering systems are fading from memory: hardware impossible to maintain, their people sadly often no longer around. Books and artifacts can't keep this legacy alive. To know a computer, you need a hands-on experience. This is the goal of our informal group. Making fully functional replicas, their historical software archive built in. We think of them as computer time capsules, but everyone else just calls them replicas. About us Current projects: Interactive Computers, the DEC legacy. [whirlwind] Whirlwind (1945) The first interactive computer - with a keyboard. But it predates the idea of using an alphanumeric keyboard, making for an exotic experience. Continue Reading [pidp1] PDP-1 (1959) Famous for the MIT hackers that loved it, and the first ever videogame - spacewar. The ultimate early 'democoder' machine. Continue Reading [pidp8] PDP-8/I (1968) Amazing for its simplicity and the quality of the software written for it. See what created MS-DOS, but also embedded computers. Continue Reading [pidp10] PDP-10 (1968) Alien mainframe-class monster and yet so fun running ITS. PDP-10 knowledge is like knowing the ancient Greeks. Without, you miss the Foundation Of GNU. Continue Reading [pidp11] PDP-11/70 (1975) So successful it defined what is normal today. Where Unix grew up; and where Windows NT got its roots (RSX-11). The 11 started it all. Continue Reading These replicas cover the major steps in 'interactive computing' from 1945 to 1975, through the product line of DEC Digital Equipment Corporation emerged from Project Whirlwind and MIT. For 30 years, it was the undisputed trailblazer of interactive computing. The strand of computing that led to Windows, Unix, Linux, Android, and microcontrollers in everything. The replicas contain the work of many people, collecting documentation, recovering ancient software, developing emulators. That makes it possible now to make replicas with a realistic 'back in the day' user experience. In other words, although we make these replicas, there is a huge community that we built upon and have to give credit to. Our goal is to make these replicas affordable and pretty enough to find a place in the living room, so as to spread the capsules far & wide :-) [yt-retroby] TLDR? See this Youtube movie from RetroBytes about DEC history - and our PiDP-11 (thank you!) [yt-collect] Youtube: Animated Blinkenlights Collection The replicas and their place in the evolutionary tree of computing The chart below is incomplete and oversimplified! It serves only to quickly put our replicas in their historical context. So. Whirlwind begat the PDP-1, which spawned three very different computer types. The minimalist PDP-8 gave birth to embedded and personal computing leading up to MS-DOS. The PDP-11 was where unix grew up, spawning workstations and later, anything to do with Linux, Macs, Android. But less well-known is that the developers of its RSX-11 OS were called in by Microsoft to develop Windows NT, a complete break with the MS-DOS past of personal computers. You can see the roots in RSX-11. Meanwhile, the glorious, super-powerful PDP-10 architecture went the way of the Dodo. But that is only true for its type of hardware. Its legacy in computer culture (hacker culture, Open Source) and countless ground-breaking computer science concepts is huge, felt to this day. [tree3] So yes, the above is an oversimplification. But gives a quick picture of how our 5 replicas, combined, cover all the strands of computing before the microprocessor era. Except, we give very little respect to the World of Mainframes here. Which is good, righting that wrong will give us plenty of future projects. Why this web site? Our projects have been scattered all over the internet. This is the overview site with a single sub-page for each replica. The sub-pages then will bundle all the links to various project sites and further information, for those who want to dig deeper. The scope of our work grew a lot over the years, from making a nice one-off replica to the ambition of covering all the major steps in computer history. This will be our front page on the web. Once the 'interactive computer' replica series above is completed, we'll be delving into to the other strand of computer history: the World of IBM. So we think there will be more and more need to have an entry-level overview of it all. We're not the only ones doing this. Scroll down further to see recommended replicas from other Makers that we own and enjoy Tweets [twitter] Posts * PiDP-11 Google Group the community * PiDP-8 Google Group the community * PiDP-10 Google Group the community * Vintage Computer Collecting Oscar's vintage computer collection * Obsolescence Guaranteed blog Developing PiDPs AE more * Vintage Computer Festivals Be there to be square Photos [yt-curious] [yt-tnmoc] [yt-securit] [yt-retroby] [yt-11list] [teletype8] [tour8] [usagi] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended from other Makers We are hardly the only ones making replica 'time capsules'. We don't pretend to give a complete overview, but here are some of them from other Makers that we own and enjoy. Let us know of any other replicas that qualify in the sense of being 'history capsules', and we will add them here for a complete overview. More is better, because more is more. [altair-dui] Altair 8800 The first commercially available microcomputer. Continue Reading [imsai] IMSAI 8080 Famous from the War Games movie. The first S-100 clone. Continue Reading [littlegp-3] LGP-30 Stan Frankel's 1956 serial, drum-based masterpiece Continue Reading [tinyace] Pilot Ace Recreation of Alan Turing's 1946 computer, using delay-line memory Continue Reading [kenbak-1] Kenbak 1 John Blankenbaker's first 'personal computer' - without microprocessor, Continue Reading [pal-1] KIM-1 The KIM-1 that introduced the 6502 microprocessor. Continue Reading Contact us? See the 'About us' page for our contact details * (c) Obsolescence Guaranteed. * Design: HTML5 UP Web-Stat traffic analysis