Open Computing History Project

Volunteers at the project's hardware lab have finished a six-month restoration of a PDP-11/70 front panel donated by a retired systems engineer. The switch register and all of the indicator lamps now work, and the panel is on display in the lab.

We have added a scanned rate card from a regional timesharing bureau, listing connect-time, CPU and storage charges for 1979. The card was found tucked inside a programming manual donated earlier this year.

Rate cards like this one are a small but useful source for anyone researching what computing actually cost before personal computers. This one lists separate prime-time and evening rates for connect time, charges per CPU second, monthly rates for disk storage by the track, and a surcharge for printing at the bureau's own site.

We are looking for volunteers to help catalogue a recent donation of core memory planes and associated documentation. The donation came from a retired field engineer and includes planes from several different mainframe and minicomputer systems, some still in their original shipping cartons.

The work involves photographing each plane, recording its markings and dimensions, and matching it against the documentation where we can. No prior hardware experience is needed, only patience and a steady hand. Training will be given at the start of the next lab session.