My Journey In Bringing A 37 Year Old Dec Pdp 11/73 Minicomputer Back To Life

For the last 9 months, I’ve been working to get a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP 11/73 computer I acquired through an estate sale to boot up properly.

In the late 70s and early 80s, DEC was king – the PDP-11 minicomputers dominated the industry, providing ‘low cost’ high performance computing to small businesses, manufacturing, and educational institutions. Many early computer science majors got their first large scale computing experience on DEC equipment.

For this machine, it’s been a long story, full of pitfalls, false starts, and frustration. But in this video (Part 3), there’s finally a resolution. If you’re interested in retrocomputing and seeing old computers live again, check it out.

More info: vintageapparatus.com

Reviving a 37 year old DEC PDP 11/73 Minicomputer

Dave Shevett

Author, Community member

This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

Diana Lopetaitė

Moderator, BoredPanda staff

Hey there, Pandas! My name is Diana (though some prefer to refer to me as Diane, Deanna, and even Liana sometimes), and I am a Community Post Moderator Lead for Bored Panda.

As my position title states, I am one of the people (employed Pandas for bamboo) over here who work with the community side of things on this website to ensure all is well, and while at that, I also help various creators and artists get recognition for the incredible work they do by connecting them to a large worldwide audience.

Other than that, outside of work, you can find me brewing a nice cup of coffee, making a pizza from scratch, or baking brownies. I also love traveling, concerts, and cats (heavy on that, because I am a cat mom).

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