Teamwork, and PDP-1 status (was Re: TU56 restoration)

[Eric Smith]

Tom asks:
> Do you have an original set of Spacewar control boxes? I'm curious
> if there was originally a dedicated hyperspace button or not. The

The fate of the original boxes is unknown, but we have photos,
drawings, and descriptions.  There were two two-position lever switches,
and a separate hyperspace button.

However, various PDP-1 sites built their own boxes, which didn't
necessarily resemble the "official" MIT ones.

> Do you have any records which indicate the reliability of the machine
> from back in the day?

No.

Since the components are now much older than their design life,
they can be expected to have much lower MTBF than they used to.
(MTBF is a statistical measure of failure rate while all specifications
are met, including design life.  The rated MTBF doesn't tell you
anything about reliability beyond end of design life, though you can
expect it to go *way* down.)

Eric