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From: andy@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <7153@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 89 02:10:39 GMT
References: <1582@uwovax.uwo.ca> <1583@uwovax.uwo.ca> <1259@ccnysci.UUCP> <5676@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Sender: news@polya.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: andy@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 26

In article <5676@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <1259@ccnysci.UUCP> sukenick@ccnysci.UUCP (SYG) writes:
>>PDP-10 (`Dec System 10', that is :-)

>DEC's name changes are usually very subtle.  

>The PDP-10 became the DECSystem-10 gradually enough that Computer
>Abstracts didn't notice, and listed both separately for some years.

PDP-10 is the name of an instruction-set architecture family, in the
same sense that PDP-11 is the name of an instruction-set architecture
family.  Think of PDP-11s.  Some run RSTS, others run RSX-11, while
still others run unix.  DECSystem-10 is a PDP-10 running the TOPS-10
Operating System.  DECSystem-20 is a PDP-10 running the TOPS-20
Operating System.

There are fairly strong similarities here.  Most PDP-11 OSs are
written in assembly-language, so they don't run on other computers;
both TOPS-20 and TOPS-10 are written in PDP-10 assembler.  Some PDP-11
OSs can only run on certain types of PDP-11s; RSX-11M requires an
11-34 or "better".  TOPS-20 requires a KL10 RevB processor or newer.

-andy
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