Many computer companies made their flagship model into a desktop workstation in the personal computing revolution, including those from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
One such machine was the DEC Professional 380, which normally ran P/OS, but could also use VENIX, a variant of Unix.
An enthusiast has restored a 380 to working order and detailed the process on their blog, explaining how it was nearly thrown away before it was saved and upgraded with a modern solid-state hard drive and 1MB of RAM.
The blog post also explains the PDP-11’s limitations and how it needed hardware workarounds to use more than 64K of memory.
The enthusiast has been thanked by the machine, which has an unusual message when it boots up.
DEC didn’t find success in the personal computer market, being bought by Compaq, and eventually absorbed by HP.
