Thismachine is the direct ancestor of all personal computers. The Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC), developed at MIT in 1963 by Wesley A. Clark and Dr. Charles E. Molnar, was revolutionary not for its circuitry, but for its new data storage medium: small, portable data tapes, allowing each user to have a personal record of their data and programs. Funded by the NIH and NASA and designed specifically for laboratory use, the LINC allowed scientists to control complex experimental conditions and collect multiple data points in real time, making ever more complicated hypotheses testable.
After the LINC prototype was developed, researchers were invited to apply for a chance to test a free LINC in their laboratory for two years; in return, they would need to spend a month in Boston learning to maintain and program the machine, and they would need to participate in written evaluations of its performance at specified intervals. Out of 72 proposals, 12 labs were chosen to evaluate the LINC. Many of the scientists had no prior training in computer programming or circuitry, but all learned enough over the course of a month to assemble the machines in their labs and operate them without help. The test labs worked on a variety of systems and questions, ranging from blood flow calculations in dogs, to operant conditioning in rats, to activation of single neurons in mice. After two years, all of the test labs agreed that the LINC had greatly enhanced their research, and all were loath to give up the machines loaned to them for the evaluation. Fifty original LINCs were produced and shipped to laboratories around the country at a cost of $35,000 per unit—expensive, but affordable for important laboratory equipment. A typical LINC configuration included the computer and a rack holding the tape drive, a small Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display, a control panel, and a keyboard. In contrast to the large mainframe computers typical of the time, the LINC could fit into eight square feet of space, and its components could be arranged in a variety of ways to make use of small amounts of precious bench space. Later LINC models were produced by private industry, and some of these companies were able to build on the underlying circuitry and programming to produce ever smaller computers for personal use, which eventually evolved into what we think of as personal computers today; however, the original machine, a highly specialized device for a very specific use, would never have been developed without government funding. [89.0001.014]
The PDP8/E, one of the models in the PDP/8 line of the first successful “mini-computers,” was introduced in 1965. The PDP models were based on the TX-0, a computer developed for hands-on laboratory use by Wesley A. Clark and Dr. Charles E. Molnar of MIT, members of the same team that designed the LINC. The TX-0 was designed to accept input directly to its core memory via a component termed I/O (Input/Output) and was equipped with a keyboard and a cathode ray screen that could display input and output. At that time, there was a free exchange of personnel and ideas between MIT and the fledgling Digital Equipment Corporation, better known as DEC, also located in Cambridge. One of DEC’s first products was the PDP-1, a machine that incorporated many features found on the TX-0. The PDP-1 was sold, rather than leased, to users who were encouraged to modify the computer to best suit their needs. After several rounds of improvements on the basic model, the PDP-8, launched in 1965, would prove to be a bestseller in the field of mini-computers.
The basic PDP-8 model came with 4000 words of memory split into 32 blocks of 128 words each. Supplemental memory was available with a tape drive first developed for the LINC computer and analogous to the later floppy disk drive. Hard copy output was printed via a teletype terminal. The combination of these capabilities with the relatively low price set by DEC — only $6,500 — led to the PDP-8 becoming a major commercial success. The PDP-8/E was one of the most common variants of the PDP-8; it was particularly attractive to users because of the many types of available input/output devices. PDP-8/E devices were used for office work, recording laboratory data, and controlling equipment during surgery. Over 50,000 units of the PDP-8 mini-computer were eventually sold, the last in 1979, fourteen years after the launch of the series.
This PDP-8/E pictured here was used by Dr. James V. Silverton, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, who studied the structure and function of various chemical compounds to determine if they were suitable as drug treatments for diseases. [90.0002.003]
