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While updating the wiki article on the 4004, I came across an interesting claim by Ted Hoff, who stated the idea of using a general-purpose CPU in a calculator came to him due to a minicomputer that had been donated to Stanford by the UK company Plessey.

I'm at a loss as to what this might be... I know Plessey had a range of realtime machines used for telephone exchanges and the Linesman radar system (rather unsuccessfully) but these were mainframe sized and I cannot find a hint of a mini.

I suppose this could be any old mini that Plessey bought and donated, but it seems less likely that Hoff would refer to it that way, if AT&T donated a PDP-11 to Stanford someone talking about it later would likely refer to it as "a dec mini".

Maury Markowitz
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  • Per Wikipedia, Plessey was in the PDP-11-compatible business. But that might be a little late for 4004 work. – dave May 23 '22 at 16:36
  • @another-dave Right. At least that's the only one I know. In fact, I've seen one not long ago at the VCL collection in Neubiberg. – Raffzahn May 23 '22 at 16:44
  • https://forum.stanford.edu/wiki/index.php/Early_Computers_at_Stanford#:~:text=%5Bedit%5D-,DEC%20PDP%2D6,disk%20was%20added%20for%20swapping. has no indication of a Plessey as one of the early computers at Stanford. Doesn't rule it out though... – Jon Custer May 23 '22 at 17:43
  • Whatever it was, it needs to have been in Stanford in 1969, to fit the 4004 narrative. – dave May 23 '22 at 22:36
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessey_System_250?wprov=sfla1 sounds like an interesting and unusual system – mikado May 26 '22 at 07:53
  • @mikado - had not heard of this - a little late for the timeline but an interesting device... and apparently actually used in the 90s! – Maury Markowitz May 28 '22 at 13:48
  • On the face of it, the dates don't work, but 1. the information in Wikipeda is not sourced 2. a prototype might have been given to a university before it was ready for sale - perhaps hardware would have been available before suitable software was written. – mikado May 28 '22 at 19:46

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