PDP8S Minicomputer discovered in warehouse

PDP8S Minicomputer discovered in warehouse
I have never unpacked this computer and it arrived
in museum collection in 1990. This is fun.

I received the PDP8S computer from a fellow collector in 1990 and it has remained unopened for all these years. Wanting to home in on historical microcomputers with my collection I felt it was time to find new homes for my minicomputers. I was now time to open the box for the very first time. My friend Clement Pierre Lewis visiting from Dominica helped open the box and make a video. The computer and box weighed in at about 100 lbs so it was a two person effort. It was fun to open the box - sort of like early Christmas and I am very pleased with the condition of the computer.

Lyle Bickley in California purchased this computer from me and here is an up date on it now in running condition.

From Lyle - BTW: Since we last chatted my PDP-8/S has been up and running most of the time. A couple of weeks ago, another transistor went out - and memory began to fail. I found and replaced it - and now it's working 100% again. So far I've replaced a total of about 32 transistors and over a dozen diodes. I recently went through CPU and memory timings in great detail - and now they meet all of DEC's specifications.

My 8/S passes all DEC diagnostics - and runs FOCAL w/o a hitch.

Bob build a cool I/O interface for the 8/S -and made one for me, too- that emulates a TTY, high speed paper tape -partial-, A-D, D-A and incremental plotter. He does the hardware and I'm in the process of modifying the drivers in FOCAL to support all of the above ;
I hope all is well with you and Gaynell!
Cheers,
Lyle

Video produced by the LCF Group consisting of David Larsen KK4WW, Gaynell Larsen KK4WWW and Dee Wallace KG4VMI.. The LCF Group ( 1-540-745-2322 ) We maintain the Floyd Virginia community amateur radio station N4USA and have a small historical microcomputer museum in the Village Green #8 Floyd Virginia.

The LCF Group has developed and maintains the following web sites.

[lbickley]

What a terrific find! Amazing that you've had it stored away all these years. It looks to be in pristine condition. It's simply beautiful! Cheers! Lyle

[lcfgroup]

Hi I am a bit reluctant to do that and will let the new owner power it up. I really don't have the time to make a good check on this. I will sure post a report from when it is powered up. I am looking forward to that myself. Thank you for the comment. Dave KK4WW Computer Collector Historian.