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XX-5798A-2F

May 2000

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Document:	The PDP-6 Computer Delivered to UWA in May 1965
Order Number:	XX-5798A-2F
Revision:
Pages:	1
Original Filename:	https://www.alex-reid.com/History/DEC-PDP6-Facts.pdf

OCR Text

The PDP-6 Computer
Delivered to UWA in May 1965
This computer was manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Boston, USA, and bought by
The University of Western Australia in May 1965.
It was a revolutionary computer at the time. Users submitted and controlled their tasks on the computer from
remote “terminals” over data communications lines located remotely from the PDP-6, operating at 110 or 300
bits/second. Multiple users could be accommodated at the same time. This was the first “time-shared”
computer to be delivered anywhere in the world. This characteristic led to it being used not only by many
departments around the University (over telecommunication lines), but also by other educational institutions in
WA and government departments (especially for engineering applications), who could also use the computer
remotely over phone lines.

Photo (above) of PDP-6 computer in the Boston
plant of DEC, prior to delivery to UWA.

The PDP-6 after delivery to UWA, 1st floor,
Physics building (above). In photo, R to L:
Ron Smart (DEC General Manager), Professor
C J Birkett-Clews (Deputy Vice-Chancellor),
Dennis Moore (Computer Centre Director).

Photo (left) of part of the PDP-6 in the Telecommunications
Museum at Wireless Hill, Melville. Now in storage at the
Australian Computer Museum Society (WA Inc) – see
http://www.aceware.com.au/acms/default.htm
Memory: core memory in 36-bit words (32,768 of them);
each word could hold 2 instructions, or one 7-digit floatingpoint number, or five 7-bit characters (bytes).
Speed: cycle time was 2 microseconds, and it could
perform addition and subtraction in 4 µsecs.
Later replaced at UWA by a compatible but bigger & faster
PDP-10 (KA10), then by a bigger & faster PDP-10 (KL10).

Sources:

[compiled by Alex Reid, October 2012]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-6
http://www.computer-history.info/Page4.dir/pages/PDP.6.dir/index.html