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LGP-30 Dead

LGP-30
KindMachine
Introduced1956
Discontinued1964
StatusDead
ManufacturerLibrascope
ClassMinicomputer
PlatformDrum memory, 31-bit
Sourcebitsavers.org ↗

A desk-sized drum computer — the 'everyman's' machine of the late 50s. Mel Kaye's legendary real-programmer story is set on its successor; Knuth wrote a racing game on one.

Stanley Frankel — who'd built ENIAC's predecessor at MIT — designed the LGP-30 as a desk-sized computer for small labs: 31-bit word, drum memory, Flexowriter terminal, $47,000.

It is immortalized by 'The Story of Mel' — Ed Nather's 1983 Usenet epic about Mel Kaye's hand-optimized hex code on its successor, the RPC-4000. The story is the founding text of 'real programmer' culture.

→ Read the full article on the ALB Wiki

Sources

  1. bitsavers.org/pdf/librascope/
  2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGP-30