Hacker News Reader

>Microsoft originally used a KA-10 running TOPS-10 and cross assemblers for software development - This was before they had Unix ported to their PDPs (Xenix)- and then Vaxes? Ms Piggy? Oh do tell! A lot happened between 1979, and 1984, when Xenix was released...

View on HN

Do you mean how Microsoft "borrowed" time on PDP-10 computers that were not theirs? I believe they got a DEC-2020 (KS10) later. Ms Piggy was a PDP-11, right?

That's right, there even used to be a picture of Bill Gates and Paul Allen using the DEC-2020 at the LCM in Seattle.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/DECSYSTE...

Sorry to be pedantic here, but that LCM computer is not a DEC-2020, and by looks of it, not the one in the photo either. The 2020 is a small machine with the KS10 processor. The ones in the photos look like some larger KL10 based DEC-20 models: 2040, 2050, 2060, or 2065.

You're absolutely right, thank you for pointing this out to me. I indeed meant a KL-10 based DEC-20, not a KS-10 2020.

And a lot more so, after they decided they didn't want that UNIX business after all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com