Ahoy, DECmate II the little PDP-8 that could
The DECmate II, a product of Digital Equipment Corporation, was introduced in 1982 as a desktop microcomputer derived from the PDP-8 minicomputer. It featured built-in floppy disk drives and could be expanded with additional hardware, making it suitable for office use. The DECmate II represented a significant evolution from earlier PDP models, showcasing the transition of computing technology during that era.
- ▪The DECmate II was launched in 1982 as a desktop microcomputer based on the PDP-8 architecture.
- ▪It included two built-in floppy disk drives and could be expanded with additional hardware for office applications.
- ▪The PDP-8 itself was introduced in 1965 and became the best-selling computer model of its time.
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In 1982, as we mentioned at length with our history of the DEC Professional, Digital Equipment Corporation attempted to keep their PDP-11 minicomputer market-relevant by turning the venerable architecture into a largely incompatible desktop microcomputer. But that wasn't the only PDP-series mini it happened to, and it wasn't even the first: the PDP-8 actually got the shrink-ray treatment several years before, and not content to merely make it into a smaller general purpose computer, DEC turned it into a word processor. Thus emerged the DECmates, descended from the 1977 DECstation VT78; arguably the zenith of the line was this one, the DECmate II, which rolled off the assembly line in 1982 simultaneously with the first DEC Professional models and the DEC Rainbow.
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