THE EVOLUTION OF THE DECsystem-10 517

Figure 8. Performance (in general purpose users) versus price for each generation.

Figure 9. System component price versus generation.

Figure 10. DECsystem-10 processor price versus time.

sus time for the family; note that the processor price has been increasing roughly at the inflation rate, suggesting a manpower intensive (or service-type) market structure. Note that since the performance (Table 7) has improved at roughly a factor of 10 in 10 years, the increase in performance/cost is nearly 20 percent per year. In contrast, a minicomputer line (constant performance) is plotted which shows the price decreasing at 21 percent per year, with a factor of 10 price decline in ten years. We should ask: "Could a PDP-6 level processor be built in 1975 to sell for $10K?"

Clearly it could, and such a system has been built as an advanced development project. This small 10 has a unified bus structure like the PDP-11 with a connection to use the Unibus family I/O devices. A system with 512 Kwords and the performance of greater than that of a KA10 occupies a cabinet somewhat smaller than a PDP-l 1/70 minicomputer.*

Figure 11 shows how the price of memory has decreased with time. Note that even though there was growth in the memory size of the

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*The computer called the 2020 was introduced in May 1978.