Wanted: Dec PDP-8 and DecTape drive

[NeXT]

I enjoy messing with my Silicon Graphics systems (I love my Onyx) but I have always dreamed of owning a PDP-8 as there is no better (and in some cases, more fun) way to program than by either entering in the code via a terminal or by front panel switches. I live in Western Canada and am looking for pretty much any kind of PDP-8 I can find (just finding a Commodore 64 is hard where I live) and to have some fun, I'm also looking for a DecTape drive (with the controller) so I can play around with it as well (but if a PDP-8 is hard to find, I bet a DecTape drive will be harder). Don't have much in the way of "old" to trade (most of my stuff is from the 90's and newer) but I do have a few gems like an IBM PC Portable with a 40Mb SCSI hard drive (and a few other goodies crammed under the hood) or my ThunderScan adapter for the Apple ImageWriter printers. I also don't have much in the way of money. Grade 12 and a totalled car really takes a beating on your wallet.

[Lou - N2MIY]

Sadly dectape drives these days seem to fetch >$1000 on ebay. I think only once did I see a TD8E controller on Ebay. I would love to have one also, but these days I am more than happy to just have a pair of 8" floppies (an RX02 clone.) A really amazing, beautiful 8/e system with RK05 disk pack drives and TU56 dectape drives all in three full height racks went for $12k about a year ago.

I think the places to look for an 8 would be in some old storage closet at a university or in some old machine shop (they were often used for machine tool controls). Since you're looking for one without having much cash, that's where you'll have to look. If you find an 11 along the way, you'll be just as happy.

They are great machines. Fun to play with, not hard to work on, a dedicated following of people still keeping them going and there's tons of documentation available.

Lou

[NeXT]

Yeah well I have always kept tabs with places around me that could possibly have a PDP of any kind but one thing that really makes it hard is that the recyclers around here are REALLY aggressive. Heck, I had the local scrap yard call the cops on me because they thought I was just picking up computers for their gold.

[pontus]

You are not the only one on the market :)

I've been searching high and low and actually found a few eights outside of ebay, but either they wont sell or demand a _very_ steep price.

One nice fellow almost gave me one, if only he could repair it first.. but that was at the bottom of his todolist :D

[Terry Yager]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350112059952&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab%3DWatching

--T

[NeXT]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350112059952&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab%3DWatching

--T

I say that earlier but I really don't see a need for just the console.

[Terry Yager]

I say that earlier but I really don't see a need for just the console.

Yeah, especially with no blinkenlights...

--T