Retrochallenge, 2005

[Tim Shoppa]

> [PDP-8/a for home use] The starting price would have easily been
> right at home with what Altair and Imsais were sitting at

I think that's the right ballpark - and the 8/a actually could have
been a year or two earlier, hitting in the early 70's instead of
the mid 70's.

The $400 that Intel wanted for an 8080A + the support chips they
wanted you to buy will buy a lot of TTL!

I suspect that the 8/a and Omnibus would've seen a "shrink" to
higher density PCB's.  As it was, DEC sold 8/a/e/f's up through
the mid 80's and never really increased the density of TTL chips
on those boards.  Maybe the savings from such a shrink really
weren't very big?

Tim.