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Object

PDP-11

A vintage PDP-11 minicomputer with a beige casing, a small CRT monitor, and a keyboard with a numeric keypad, set against a dark background.

A 16-bit minicomputer built by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 onward and produced in various models for two decades. It was the workhorse of laboratory and industrial control through the 1970s and 80s, with around 600,000 units sold. The Therac-25's control software ran on a PDP-11 in hand-written assembly language, including its own custom multitasking scheduler — built because off-the-shelf operating systems were considered too expensive.

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