Timesharing on the MIT Weather Radar PDP-8/IX(news.mit.edu)

This is the story of how a surplus PDP‑8/I became the digital heart of MIT’s weather radar lab — and how a 19‑year‑old student ended up modifying the CPU and writing its timesharing system. On summer afternoons in 1973 when a line of thunderstorms rolled in across central and eastern New England, I’d stand in the radar room on the 18th floor of building 54 on MIT’s campus in Cambridge. Lights were turned off and excitement was in the air as people huddled around the radar screens, with their ic...