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PDP-7 Dead

PDP-7
KindMachine
Introduced1964
Discontinued1971
StatusDead
ManufacturerDigital Equipment Corporation
ClassMinicomputer
Platform18-bit
Sourcebitsavers.org ↗

An obscure 18-bit mini — immortal because Ken Thompson found a spare one in 1969 and wrote the first version of Unix on it in assembly.

Created by Digital Equipment Corporation
Hosted Research Unix

The PDP-7 was DEC's 1964 update of the 18-bit architecture — 120 sold, unremarkable. In 1969 Ken Thompson got access to a spare unit at Bell Labs and wrote a file system, a kernel, and Space Travel for it — in assembly.

Ritchie joined, Brian Kernighan dubbed it 'Unics,' and within a year they'd moved to a PDP-11/20. The PDP-7 is the machine Unix was born on — everything after is migration.

→ Read the full article on the ALB Wiki

Sources

  1. bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp7/
  2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-7