Re: 6-bit characters (was: Re: Streams in Ada)

[Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>]

Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> writes:

> How interesting. Since you and MDC both say this, I only need one more
> person to tell me this for it to be a fact ("What I tell you 3 times is
> true."). I was aware of the PDP-11, but no one ever mentioned that the
> DEC 10 was the PDP-10.

This page

  http://www.montagar.com/dfwcug/VMS_HTML/timeline/1971-2.htm

seems to imply that DECsystem-10 and PDP-10 are different beasts.  The
following page

  http://www.dsi.uminho.pt/museuv/framedec3.htm

states that the DECsystem-10 was initially called PDP-10.  And here's
a quote from the Jargon file:


|  PDP-20 n.     The most famous computer that never was.  {PDP-10}
|  computers running the {{TOPS-10}} operating system were labeled
|  `DECsystem-10' as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11.
|  Later on, those systems running {TOPS-20} were labeled `DECSYSTEM-20'
|  (the block capitals being the result of a lawsuit brought against DEC by
|  Singer, which once made a computer called `system-10'), but contrary to
|  popular lore there was never a `PDP-20'; the only difference between
|  a 10 and a 20 was the operating system and the color of the paint.
|  Most (but not all) machines sold to run TOPS-10 were painted `Basil
|  Blue', whereas most TOPS-20 machines were painted `Chinese Red' (often
|  mistakenly called orange).