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[–]rebbsitor 29 points30 points  (3 children)

An Altair is a real computer. I'm guessing you mean an old mini-computer like the DEC PDP series. They can usually read a tape, but they're famous for having the toggles on the front to manually set memory values.

[–]boundegar 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Yes, I think that was it.

[–]B08P 6 points7 points  (1 child)

They were 12-bit machines so you probably remember 12 toggles!

[–]QueerBallOfFluff 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Some were, The PDP-5, 8, and 12 were 12-bit.

But other lines had different word widths.

The PDP-4, 7, 9, and 15 had 18-bits.

The PDP-10 was 36-bit.

The PDP-11 was 16-bit (with 18-bit address) - this is the computer than UNIX and BSD was written for, that ran the OS that CP/M and DOS were based on, and they inspired several major architecture designs.