The DEC PDP-8 was probably the most successful computer of its day. It was also an extremely simple machine. Which made it susceptible to the cloners long before the IBM PC was.
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Interesting find! According to one source, it’s built around the Intersil 6100 micro, which implements the PDP-8 instruction set:
I found another advert:
HOW’M I GONNA PAY FOR IT?
TLF offers 3 purchase plans:
- CASH with order - and receive a BONUS CERTIFICATE worth $100 on selected MINI 12 accessories.
- Send $350 with order and pay balance of $545 when ready to ship or COD to postman.
- NO INTEREST EASY PAYMENT PLAN
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:
STEP 1
Fill in coupon below and mail TODAY with your check for $195You can use your BAC/VISA, Master Charge or American Express too! Make all cheques payable to TLF Corporation.
STEP 2
When your MINI 12 is ready to be shipped you send us $200 or pay postman COD.STEP 3
The balance of $500 is paid in 4 equal monthly installments of $125 each.TOTAL PRICE ONLY $895
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Intersil offered a really cheap “Sampler” kit you could use to build an entire minimal system. Here is a link to their brochure/data sheet on it http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/other/i6100cfs.pdf
Kilobaud ran an article on the sampler on pg 54 of the DEC 79 issue:
Kilobaud Microcomputing Magazine (December 1979) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
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Heatkit did something similar with the H-11. It was basically a PDP-11.
The H-11 was approved by DEC but DEC forced Heathkit to limit performance of the H-11 to prevent it cutting into sales of DECs computers. DEC actually manufactured the CPU used in the H-11.
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