PDP-8

The PDP-8 is a family of 12-bit minicomputers that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Launched in 1965, it was the first minicomputer to sell for under $20,000, and the $25,000 mark for a complete system would later be a defining characteristic of the minicomputer class. Over 50,000 units were sold during the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pioneering LINC but has a smaller instruction set, which is an expanded version of the PDP-5 instruction set. To lower the cost of implementation, the system leaves out a number of commonly used functions which have to be written using combinations of other instructions. This leads to complex programs. The PDP-12 is an offshoot of the PDP-8 with a processor that can run programs for the PDP-8 and LINC systems. The successor to the PDP-8 line is the PDP-11, which featured a much more complete instruction set and was not backward compatible.