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PDP-10


PDP-10: [Programmed Data Processor model 10] n. The machine that
   made timesharing real.  It looms large in hacker folklore because
   of its adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing
   facilities and research labs, including the MIT AI Lab, Stanford,
   and CMU.  Some aspects of the instruction set (most notably the
   bit-field instructions) are still considered unsurpassed.  The 10
   was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines (descendants of the
   PDP-11) when DEC recognized that the 10 and VAX product lines were
   competing with each other and decided to concentrate its software
   development effort on the more profitable VAX.  The machine was
   finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983, following the failure of
   the Jupiter Project at DEC to build a viable new model.  (Some
   attempts by other companies to market clones came to nothing; see
   Foonly and Mars.)  This event spelled the doom of
   ITS and the technical cultures that had spawned the original
   Jargon File, but by mid-1991 it had become something of a badge of
   honorable old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a
   PDP-10.  See TOPS-10, ITS, AOS, BLT, DDT,
   DPB, EXCH, HAKMEM, JFCL, LDB, pop,
   push, Appendix A.