Lately I’ve enjoyed dipping into older books on computers, like Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib, Peter Salus’ A Quarter Century of UNIX (which is extra fascinating now that we’re at the 50 year mark), and Charles Petzold’s evergreen Code. One of the big delights in this is reading about mini/micro computers, that small niche between mainframes and (eventually) desktop PCs. So I was excited to find out that there’s an emulation scene for these machines. I think I might try my hand at learning how to use this PDP-11 emulator. The PDP-11 was a groundbreaking minicomputer that these books often cover in reverential tones: it could be fascinating to try and experience it without getting into the expensive world of vintage computer equipment collecting.
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