I’ve finally taken possession of the PDP-9 console I’ve been saving for for the last few months. It didn’t come cheap, but for such a unique item I was prepared to dig deep. My plan now is to rebuild a replica rack and hook up a simh emulator to the console. I will avoid making any modifications to the console so its left in original condition.

Along with the console, I’m also look at the feasibility of hooking up a TU55 drive, a paper tape drive and a deflection monitor
Along with the console I also aquired a set of 5 ex-PDP-12 backplanes and numerous flip chips so in the long term I am toying with the idea of building a TTL 18-bit processor. Whilst still not a true PDP-9 it would be an interesting exercise and a good bit more authentic than running an emulator.

Next steps are to start to draw up plans for the rack.

Introduction

Introduced in 1966, the PDP-9 was a 18 bit minicomputer built by Digital (DEC). The machine was a successor to the PDP-7 minicomputer, which it was upwardly compatible with and had roughly double the performance of the earlier machine. The machine could address up to 32KW of core memory.

The PDP-9 was one of the first small/medium sized computers to feature a keyboard/monitor system (a rudimentary for of operating system) which ran on the DECtape storage system.

The PDP-9/L, a compact and lower cost version of the PDP-9 was introduced in 1968. Of the 450 PDP-9s produced, 40 were PDP-9/Ls.

The PDP-9 was replaced by the TTL based PDP-15 in 1969.

Options and Peripherals