Restored PDP-1 Demonstration

[mkdri1]

wow, it was huge!

[muzboz]

They seem to be always sold out of these at JB Hi-Fi. Do Walmart have them?

I think maybe they're waiting for the new model with 3D support.

[BARONSCHWARZWALD]

wherer can I get one?

[pdp1demos]

@REDDF1VE and @bphutchins, the white haired guy in the beginning of the video is not Steve Russell, though he often does demonstrations on the PDP-1. The person in this video is Peter Samson, a contemporary of Steve's at the hacker lab at MIT, and the author of the music playing program heard in the video, among his many other achievements. In regards to yongwoogoon's comment about the book Hacker's, Peter Samson is mentioned in the opening sentence of the book!

[RajChanian]

Just demod this to my son, who is intrigued how the UI and Hardware has moved on and now appreciates his Nintendo WII

[MattTheSaiyan]

That is one groovy, neato looking monitor they are using. Could be a good idea to use styling like that for a modern day HD TV or something.

[toastyken]

@MattTheSaiyan It's an oscilloscope! :D Notably, rather than redrawing the screen line by line like a CRT, it draws individual points and has a limited number of about 200 points it can draw each second. That's why the graphics are wireframe, to limit the number of total points it needs to draw!

[Ticamai]

Hmm, what is that the computer is playing? The song?

[REDDF1VE]

That Steve Russel, isn't it?

[bphutchins]

@REDDF1VE yeah the white haired guy at the beginning is him

[yongwoogoon]

wow that's really great!! i've once read about pdp-1 on 'hackers' by steven levy. but i've never seen it (not even pictures) before. that just looks like what i've imagined. soooo great.

[MrArach666]

Steve Russel was the man!

[wheagy]

This is amazing. Would be worth a trip from the east coast just to see this alone. Nice work!

[viznut]

Actually, PDP-1 beats the VIC-20 both in terms of calculation speed (DIV takes up to 40 microseconds on the PDP-1 vs several hundreds on the 1 MHz 6502) and the amount of RAM in base configuration (4096x18 bits vs 5120x8+1024x4 bits)

[rudyiking]

Very cool!!!

[Videogamehistorian00]

at least they made an arcade remake in 1977 of SpaceWar! called Space Wars, bassically the same game that runs faster and is on a normal vector monitor plus a ship that one of the ships looks like the enterprise

[newcoleco]

For me, this is a good example of keeping alive the master piece of the video game history. Thanks!

[sparkey989]

@newcoleco *computer* history

[newcoleco]

@sparkey989 I know, we are talking here about computers. Yes, computer history... which is part of videogame history be we use computers to create new videogames... To me, even if it's not the same, videogames as we know it wouldn't have been possible without computers, and so a computer like pdp is part of the videogame history too. Do you remember playing Hunt the wumpus?

[Superfreaxx]

@newcoleco

I think the most interesting part of the digital age is that Computers and video games cant exist without eachother. Without Computers video games wouldnt have been made, without videogames the technological advances in computer hardware would've stalled due to lack of consumer demand.

[DevSodDribble]

@Superfreaxx Incorrect. You're forgetting the REAL 'consumer demand' here, which is, of course, porn. It was the same with VHS 25-30 years ago.

[Superfreaxx]

@DevSodDribble

You're correct in saying that the porn industry does make shitloads by investing in technologies like VHS, DVDs and The Internet. But it doesnt drive the need for the introduction of new computer hardware as all pre-rendered videos cant show off new features like 3D acceleration, HDR, and realtime physics which video games can,

[cobrachoppergirl]

$120,000 kaliope... a Vic-20 is more powerful

[argimenes]

It's a specious comparison. Of course a personal computer a decade newer is going to be more powerful. What's extraordinary is the achievement in the context of its time; and, of course, it's a cool frigging piece of hardware to look at.

[optnonymous]

I love selling the russians our old computers... lol  j/k!

[Vyggy]

Nice music remembering that its from paper tape.. and that was one long tape for 30 seconds of music.

[eMGeeGFX]

@Vyggy, yes I realize that and I'm therefore extra impressed.