PDP-8 Minicomputer
date: label: Date made
content: 1966
name: label: maker
content: Digital Equipment Corporation
notes: label: Description
content: In 1957, Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson founded a company called Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) with the goal of manufacturing and selling high-speed digital circuits. By 1959, the company was well established, and it introduced its first computer, the PDP-1 (The letters stood for "Programmed Data Processor"). The PDP-1 incorporated some of the engineering advances that would later characterize minicomputers, especially in its internal design and attractive packaging. About 50 were produced,; its price was $120,000. DEC soon designed and began selling other machines as well. The PDP-1 was followed by a series of other more powerful, but less expensive products in the PDP line.  
label: Description
content: The PDP-8 was introduced in 1965. The first model sold for $18,000. Later versions of this machine that incorporated improvements in electronics appeared over the next decade. These became steadily smaller and cheaper, triggering a rush of new applications in which the computer was embedded into another system and sold by a third party (called an Original Equipment Manufacturer, or OEM). Some machines were specifically designed for time sharing and for business applications. Ultimately over 50,000 PDP-8's were sold (excluding those embedded as single chips into other systems).
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Maynard
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
label: See more items in
content: Computers & Business Machines
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Digital Equipment Corporation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0521.02
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0521.02
label: accession number
content: 1989.0521
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Minicomputer
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 32 1/2 in x 20 1/2 in x 20 1/2 in; 82.55 cm x 52.07 cm x 52.07 cm