Talk:PDP-14

Short description?

@Macrakis: Why exactly did you revert my edit to the short description? The given reason '"control CPU and system" is too low-level a description' makes no sense -- "low level" in what way? Also, you're missing the "Industrial" from the reverted short description. The original description, "Industrial controller from Digital" violates the convention of generality and is stylistically incorrect, eg. what is the general reader supposed to make of "Digital"? "DEC" maybe, but just "Digital"? And as I just mentioned, even using "Digital" alone or replacing it by "DEC" or "D.E.C." would be confusing and non-general and not in the style of the vast majority of short descriptions of ISAs, CPUs / microprocessors and other computer systems on Wikipedia.

Also, why was the "Notes" section added back, when it was originally added for a footnote describing why the PDP-14 "stack" is not a "stack"? As it is now, the "Notes" section is unneeded due to the removal of the references to "stack" and the footnote -- it's empty and makes the page very ugly.

I'll go ahead and change it back. Jdbtwo (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Macrakis: Also, if you consider "Industrial controller from Digital" then, ignoring the stylistically incorrect "from Digital" which seems a bit meaningless and which goes against the convention of most other Wikipedia CPU articles, then you're left with just "Industrial controller", which IMO is too vague.

Would you be satisfied with "Industrial control processor and system" instead? ( and which is only 39 characters ) Jdbtwo (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re-adding the Notes section was an error, sorry.

Don't worry about it :)

I don't understand why you describe it as a "CPU" or "processor". After all, the article lead describes it as a "specialized computer", and every computer contains a CPU. On the other hand, "system" seems too broad. "Industrial controller" or "Industrial control computer" seems more apt.

I'm OK with "Industrial control computer" if you are.

The logic behind my including "CPU" or "processor" is due to the description of the PDP-14 as a whole in which "The system's configuration included a control unit and a number of external boxes." ie. the "system" ( PDP-14 ) was a combination of a control unit / CPU and other discrete units ( boxes, described in article ) which it needed to function.

I'm not sure what's wrong with "from Digital". The company went by just Digital in the later years (not DEC). Would you prefer "by"? --Macrakis (talk) 16:39, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem, IMO, is not really including "Digital" but the fact that it goes against the convention of the short descriptions of Wikipedia computer / computer science articles being general. Also, if the character limit was significantly greater than 40 then I'd prefer "manufactured by D.E.C.", but, just "from/by Digital/DEC" seems vague and and lacking in style -- with a 40-character limit I just think that trying to shoehorn "D.E.C." into it in some way seems ugly and/or clumsy.

Anyway, I've changed the short description to "Industrial control computer"

"CPU" is just wrong. The PDP-14 contains lots of things other than a CPU, namely ROM, I/O units, software, etc. And as the article says, different models even had different ISAs. So I think "industrial controller" is the correct level of description. --Macrakis (talk) 17:21, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if my version of the short description implied that the PDP-14, *as a whole*, was just a "CPU." As I described earlier, I included "system" to cover all the other discrete functional blocks of the, well, system :) Jdbtwo (talk) 18:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]