The PDP-8 was small enough and cheap enough ($18,000) for labs, factories, and universities to own their own computer. TeamsMicrosoft Teams — chat, video calls, and Office integration for workplace collaboration. programmed in assembly and BASICBeginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code — an early programming language designed for ease of learning. on teletypes; DEC's minicomputerA smaller multi-user computer from the 1960s–80s — affordable to departments rather than whole corporations. line trained a generation of systems programmers before PCs arrived. UnixAn influential multitasking OS from the 1970s — files, pipes, and C shaped Linux, macOS, and BSD. and C were developed on PDP machines at Bell Labs.

The PDP-8 created the minicomputerA smaller multi-user computer from the 1960s–80s — affordable to departments rather than whole corporations. category and democratized access beyond mainframeA large, powerful computer for centralized organizational workloads — dominated enterprise computing before PCs. datacenters.

It put interactive computing in departments that could never afford IBMInternational Business Machines — a major computer and enterprise technology company since the early 20th century. mainframes.