From: David M. Razler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: UPPER and lower dec Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 13:37:31 -0500 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 36 Message-ID: References: <7v05dh$ppn$1@pyrite.mv.net> <38490A72.D56AAA2D@bellatlantic.net> <82b8it$72n@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <384EC925.23132D21@gce.com> <82o9mr$una$1@mach.thp.univie.ac.at> <3850137F.3A0D779C@gce.com> Reply-To: david.razler@worldnet.att.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.65.144 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net 944937519 2822 12.79.65.144 (11 Dec 1999 18:38:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 Dec 1999 18:38:39 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!wnmaster1!not-for-mail | > [[Even though the company logo was spelled "digital" | > (lower-case), my memory is that PDP-11 processor handbooks | > spelled the anacronym "PDP" (programmable data processor) | > in *upper* case. But my old PDP-11 processor handbooks | > are 9 time zones away just now, so I can't easily check | > this...]] | ---My handbooks are not so far off. The covers routinely on later | red ones spell it lowercase. Wasn't always thus: the PDP10 had | dignified upper case way back when. | From its earliest Logic Handbook (pub A-705 the hard-bound eddition announcing the PDP-1 in the back) the company was digital or dec until Near The End PDP was almost always PDP for Programmed Data Processor (a spelled-out rendition was quickly dropped from the dec lexicon) Including titles like the digital PDP-8 MAINTENANCE MANUAL and the PDP-7 PROGRAMMING SYSTEM Except for a few - the PDP-15 was as writ, the pdp10 (nospace between pdp and 10) whose name latter changed to decsystem10. Manual names were all lower-cased. The LOGIC HANDBOOKS of the 60s gave way to the logic handbooks of the 70s. While it was always sans-serif type the d|i|g|i|t|a|l in the trademark, the lower-case sans-serif, tightly kerned, and in the early '70s, damned playful and friendly, showing heavy influences of the work of the late type designer Herb Lubalin - especially on the decsystem10 manual spines, which mixed bold and bookweight type in the names. dmr David M. Razler david.razler@worldnet.att.net ###### From: jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: UPPER and lower dec Date: 12 Dec 1999 01:00:32 GMT Organization: The University of Iowa Lines: 11 Message-ID: <82us3g$gv4$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!marge.eaglequest.com!ord-feed.news.verio.net!news.uiowa.edu!not-for-mail From article , by David M. Razler : > From its earliest Logic Handbook ... See http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/logos/ for some history of the DEC trademark art. I do have DEC manuals that use cases inconsistantly in the body of the text, but what Razler said holds very much for artwork on outsides of whatnot. Doug Jones jones@cs.uiowa.edu ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: UPPER and lower dec Date: Sun, 12 Dec 99 09:53:36 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 28 Message-ID: <83002r$p45$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> References: <82us3g$gv4$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> X-Trace: KpZ01XWhiwz0OXhNBBKHR9QY9kXA5jKrsOQhj/79T+0= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Dec 1999 11:14:35 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!uunet!ams.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!newsfeed.fast.net!howland.erols.net!outgoing.news.rcn.net.MISMATCH!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-216-3 In article <82us3g$gv4$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu>, jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) wrote: >From article , by David M. Razler : > >> From its earliest Logic Handbook ... > >See http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/logos/ >for some history of the DEC trademark art. I do have DEC manuals that >use cases inconsistantly in the body of the text, but what Razler said >holds very much for artwork on outsides of whatnot. Fixing those inconsistences was one of my goals when I started working on getting DEC to do all of their publishing in bits :-). Of course, I always had to wait for the damn lawyers to make up their minds how things were going to be spelt. I changed the spelling of DECsystem-10 so many times that I still can't remember the (now) correct way :-). I do remember that we finally got the spellings consistent in one document only to have the cover of the book different (I could do book covers with RUNOFF). /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: mbg@world.std.com (Megan) Subject: Re: UPPER and lower dec Message-ID: Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1999 19:07:37 GMT References: <7v05dh$ppn$1@pyrite.mv.net> <38490A72.D56AAA2D@bellatlantic.net> <82b8it$72n@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <384EC925.23132D21@gce.com> <82o9mr$una$1@mach.thp.univie.ac.at> <3850137F.3A0D779C@gce.com> Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.umass.edu!world!mbg David M. Razler writes: >From its earliest Logic Handbook (pub A-705 the hard-bound eddition announcing >the PDP-1 in the back) the company was digital or dec until Near The End > PDP was almost always PDP for Programmed Data Processor (a spelled-out >rendition was quickly dropped from the dec lexicon) At least with handbooks, it appears to have been mostly 'pdp' and not 'PDP'... check the dec_handbooks list off my collection page... I have endeavored to match the case in all listings... Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ ###### From: jones@cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: UPPER and lower dec Date: 12 Dec 1999 22:36:46 GMT Organization: The University of Iowa Lines: 27 Message-ID: <83181u$hma$1@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.enteract.com!feed.newsfeeds.com!newsfeeds.com!marge.eaglequest.com!ord-feed.news.verio.net!news.uiowa.edu!not-for-mail From article , by mbg@world.std.com (Megan): > At least with handbooks, it appears to have been mostly 'pdp' and > not 'PDP'... check the dec_handbooks list off my collection page... I > have endeavored to match the case in all listings... It's largely a matter of the era. It's upper case in the advertising copy for the PDP-4, it's upper case in the 1965-66 manuals for the PDP-8, and then it gets emphatically lowercased in the late 1960's. Even the 1968 Logic Handbook has a section on PDP computers (upper case) and DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION is written that way (all upper case) in the text. The d|i|g|i|t|a|l trademark was always lower case, and so was the (only briefly used) vertical dec trademark. Forms such as DECtape and DECdisk were common on nameplates and in text, and these usages persisted for some time after the massive lowercasing of the 1970's. This argument about "the official rules" for upper/lower case in DEC trademarks makes about as much sense as some of the arguments in the Talmud supporting the idea that either the written or pronounced form has precidence in biblical interpretation (after a longwinded digression on this subject, the conclusion is that there is no consistant rule that applies everywhere). Doug Jones jones@cs.uiowa.edu