[MrGolf]

The PC you were referring to was a DEC Rainbow or a DECmate. Desktop PDP-8
Then there was a Pro 350.

[Topspinmo]

I just got my hackers cd from overseas, can't wait to start hacking being most computers are free for all for devious activity

[rexxfan]

I went to high school in suburban Boston in the early '70s and learned my first assembly language on the PDP-8I that DEC donated to the school. I was in DECUS for a while and made several visits to the Maynard plant. I applied for a job there when I was graduating college but ended up at Bell Labs (and later, IBM, where I've been for 35 years now). I still remember most of the instructions you had to key in for the RIM loader :-)
--
bc

Worked with a PDP and a Vax in credit union industry. Used Punch Cards on systems in Navy. How about booting using a paper tape!

[Ed Krik]

Worked at DEC from 76 through 91. Started in Marlborough FS. Ended in Acton GIA. Loved working at Digital.

[marennorge]

I started at DEC in 1981, too, and managed to survive the Compaq and HP mergers. I retired in 2006. Worked at several different Massachusetts locations finally ending up at MRO1 in Marlboro for the last 9 years of my career there.

[SB8476]

I worked for DEC between 1974 and 1980 in Rochester and Buffalo NY. Worked in Field and Software Services. Worked on the PDP 1, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 and VAX. Very good experience always thankful for the training and experience that I received.

[DeanFL]

Not DEC, but Prime Computer, Computervision, and EMC.

[RetiredInTV]

I worked for DEC from 1980 to 1995 in the manufacturing plant in Augusta, Maine. Started in HR and moved to IT in the computer room. Worked on a DEC10, couple PDP 11s, and a wide variety of VAX. SCI, a company in Alabama, bought the manufacturing plant in the middle of 1995, and took on some of the employees. I worked for them for a couple months then moved to South Carolina where I was hired by a company hunting for VAX management and VMS skills.

DEC was a really great company to work for - excellent benefits and treated the employees well. Meetings and training in Massachusetts were really great trips.

[Golf-Tinker]

Joined DEC early 60s in Maynard. Worked in software development for 18-bit machines (PDP-5, 7 and 9) and 36-bit (PDP-6). The PDP-6 evolved into the DEC-10 and -20. Left when the Harlan Anderson affair forced Ken Olsen to take the company public.

Returned in mid 70s to work on PDP-11s. Later VAX/VMS.

Moved to DEC Rainbow (PC) project as product manager. Helped arrange visit of Steve Jobs to Maynard to lunch with Ken Olsen (at little French restaurant across the street from corporate headquarters). Anybody remember the place or eat there? Jobs's visit was not mentioned in the biography.

Left in 1984 when I realized Ken did not understand the PC and the changes coming to the computer industry.

FYI: VMS and RSX were operating systems, not languages. You code in a language; compile or assemble your program; and run it with an operating system.

[Dan9871]

Ate at "La Petite Auberge"... though for debug sessions Lando's was a more likely choice.

[outahere]

Originally Posted by Dan9871

Ate at "La Petite Auberge"... though for debug sessions Lando's was a more likely choice.

I would LOVE to have a Lando's steak and cheese sub right about now!!! Even their small size subs were more than enough for two people!

[gcohen6]

I worked at DEC from 85 to 92. When I left, it was getting crazy there. Managers were getting pummeled in the parking lots.

It was a wild and crazy time back in the day...

When I started I worked in the Field Service Logistics unit in Woburn (yes, where the water was tainted). It was my job to get to the root cause failures of their PC boards. I set up a data base warehouse to suck in data from all the repair places around the world. I called it FAMIS, (Failure Analysis and Management Information System). I ran a proof of concept using 2 repair facilities in MA. I found that a chip was failing because the vendor didn't clean the ic before encapsulating it. It saved the company around $2 Million. So I was scheduled to go live worldwide. And then it got interesting.

My project got shut down for no reason. I was livid and I made no bones about it. I even left the department to work somewhere else in the company. About 4 months later, there was a news story about a ring of thieves in DEC that were stealing PC chips. I put two and two together and realized that my bosses boss was named in that ring of thieves. If my FAMIS system had gone live it would have pinpointed the IC being falsely reported as bad. The thieves were reporting IC's as bad (which they were not) and when they took an IC out of stock, they just pocketed it and sold them in the black market. it all made sense to me after that.

But no one offered me a chance to come back and set up FAMIS. Seems they just wanted to bury the story. So I moved on. C'est la vie...