Quoting bobmayans@aol.com:
..... let me add that it was a sheer pleasure to proram the PDP-10. It rewarded programmer skill and made for succinct, expressive code. I always appreciated the architecure of this system.
Although I never wrote machine language code for the PDP-10, my recollection is that this (or the PDP-6) was the first use of the hardware push-pop; probably the most significant change with respect to the IBM 709 or 7090, which I did program extensively in machine language. But my main recollection of the PDP-10 is twofold: first, their FORTRAN had COMPLEX data type, which is probably the only FORTRAN or anything else that was able to handle complex numbers directly via single symbols. And I {\em do} include C++ and Objective C in this comment. Secondly, and what was likely the most important feature from the user's point of view, was the timesharing operating system. Long before IBM had one. I don't know that either of these features had much to do with hardware, but the timesharing was certainly exemplary. And those DECtapes! It is interesting to speculate as to why the PDP-10 (later metamorphosed to PDP-20)never caught on better than it did, but that has been the fate or numerous products. It is painful to think that the PDP-10 gave Billy Gates his head start on microcomputers via the Intel 8080 cross assembler. - hvm ------------------------------------------------- www.correo.unam.mx UNAMonos Comunicándonos