The LINC-8 and PDP-12 Computers
While Bell in his book says designing the LINC provided the ideas for DEC's second and third machines, the 18-bit inexpensive follow-on to its first, the PDP-4 and the company's first 12-bit design of its own, the PDP-5, Digital Equipment Corporation would launch the wondrous PDP-8 before it manufactured the first next-generation LINC-compatible computer, the LINC-8 and a combination of the 7400-series chip-based PDP-8/I and a redesigned LINC, combined as the PDP-12. DEC's final 12-bit lab machine, the Lab-8/E, did away with the LINC entirely. . The first follow-on, the LINC-8, booted (slowly) to a PDP-8 program called PROGOFOP (PROGram OF OPeration) which interfaced to the separate LINC hardware. The PDP-12 was the last and most popular follow-on to the LINC. It was a capable and improved machine, and was more stable than the LINC-8, but architecturally was still an imperfect hybrid of a LINC and a PDP-8, full of many small technical glitches. (For example, the LINC had an overflow bit which was a small but important part of the LINC's machine state; the PDP-12 had no provision for saving and restoring the state of this bit across PDP-8 interrupts.)
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