A story of trains, computers, and two images.
This is at the same time a continuation to what may become a loose series, namely, “Things on the Web that aren’t what they seem to be”, and the beginning of an entirely new one. Anyway, this is the story of two photos that are rather well known in the context of computer history. You may even have seen one or the other popping up on a website.
Since you are reading this blog, you may be even familiar with the broader context.
Context
In 1961, the MIT recieved a DEC
PDP-1 computer from Digital Equipment Corporation as a donation. It was one of the very first production models and DEC’s motivation was a multiple one: First, the PDP-1 was somewhat of a commercial version of MIT’s experimental TX-0 computer