PDP-8
| Developer | Digital Equipment Corporation |
|---|---|
| Product family | Programmable Data Processor |
| Type | Minicomputer |
| Release date | March 22, 1965 |
| Introductory price | $18,500, equivalent to about $140,000 in 2016 |
| Units sold | 50,000+ |
| Successor | PDP-8/S |
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The 12-bit PDP-8, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), was the first successful commercial minicomputer. DEC introduced it on March 22, 1965 priced at $18,500 (equivalent to about $140,000 in 2016) and eventually sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that time. The PDP-8 was the first computer to be sold for under $20,000 and then DEC sold the PDP-8/S for under $10,000. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of computers (the PDP-5 was not originally intended to be a general-purpose computer). The chief engineer who designed the initial version of the PDP-8 was Edson de Castro, who later founded Data General.
The earliest PDP-8 model (informally known as a "Straight-8") uses diode–transistor logic, packaged on flip chip cards, and is about the size of a small household refrigerator.
This was followed in 1966 by the PDP-8/S, available in desktop and rack-mount models. Using a one-bit serial arithmetic logic unit (ALU) implementation, allowed the PDP-8/S to be smaller, less expensive and slower than the original PDP-8. The PDP-8/S was about 20% of the cost and about 10% of the performance of the PDP-8. The only mass storage peripheral available for the PDP-8/S was the DF32 disk.
Later systems (the PDP-8/I and /L, the PDP-8/E, /F, and /M, and the PDP-8/A) returned to a faster, fully parallel implementation but use much less costly transistor-transistor logic (TTL) MSI logic. Most surviving PDP-8s are from this era. The PDP-8/E is common, and well-regarded because so many types of I/O devices were available for it. It was often configured as a general-purpose computer.
In 1975, early personal computers based on inexpensive microprocessors, such as the MITS Altair 8800 and later TRS-80, Apple II and others began to dominate the market for small general purpose computers.
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