Category Archives: Retro Computing

Essex BCPL restore

Now that I have a working TOPS-10 environment, in order to truly start the journey to MUD the first step is to install the Essex university BCPL compiler from the 1970’s. This compiler was lost for many years, and even … Continue reading

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May the Fortran be with you.

If you have your own Tops-10 system up and running you might want to do something useful with it. So, the first step for me was to install the Fortran and BASIC programming languages, partly to prove they would work … Continue reading

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Configuring PDP10 Tops-10 for online use

I installed my very own PDP10 Tops-10 system up and running on simh, but to make it work like a 1970’s timesharing system I needed to configure it to support remote users on “teletypes” attached to the system. Of course, … Continue reading

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Building a Dec PDP10 using simh

The Dec PDP10 is a large mini/mainframe computer from the 1970’s. For me the most famous aspect of the PDP10 is that it was the original computer upon which Colossal Cave Adventure, Dungeon (aka Zork) and the original MUD were … Continue reading

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Stuck in the MUD

MUD was the first game that I played that combined multi-user with a Colossal Cave Adventure style narrative and gave every user a character in the story. Today it remains one of the “greats” as a first of its kind, … Continue reading

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Star Trekkin’ across the universe

Many years ago I used to be a computer nerd and really enjoyed just writing programs on the at the local computer centre on a HP2000 Access computer system. The language was BASIC but this was a 32 user computer … Continue reading

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Building an HP2000/Access system from scratch

If you are interested in revisiting the great computer systems of the 1970s, then there is nowhere easier to start than with the HP2000/Access system, a system that was used by many schools and universities around the world from 1969 … Continue reading

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