Star Wars PDP-11/45(toobnix.org) |
Star Wars PDP-11/45(toobnix.org) |
From my perspective, the most stunning things about PDPs is the processor's console. Every fucking bit in this processor state has a light bulb (not even an LED). And this array of switches? That's how you can load some address/value into the CPU register. It's purely amazing that you can steer the machine on such a level but also use it for high level programming.
It's also handy for debugging -- as you stepped your program you could simply see the pc, flags, etc.