DECmate
computer series by DEC
DECmate was the name of a series of PDP-8-compatible computers produced by the Digital Equipment Corporation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. All of the models used an Intersil 6100 (later known as the Harris 6100) or Harris 6120 (an improved Intersil 6100) microprocessor which emulated the 12-bit DEC PDP-8 CPU. They were text-only and used the OS/78 or OS/278 operating systems, which were extensions of OS/8 for the PDP-8. Aimed at the word processing market, they typically ran the WPS-8 word-processing program. Later models optionally had Intel 8080 or Z80 microprocessors which allowed them to run CP/M. The range was a development of the VT78 which was introduced in July 1977.
VT78
Introduced in July 1977, this machine was built into a VT52 case and had an Intersil 6100 microprocessor running at 2.2 MHz. The standard configuration included an RX02 dual 8-inch floppy disk unit which was housed in the pedestal that the computer rested on.
DECmate
Introduced in 1980, this machine was built into a VT100 case. It had a 10 MHz clock and 32 Kwords of memory. It was also known as the VT278.
DECmate II
As part of a three-pronged strategy against IBM, the company released this model in 1982 at the same time as the PDP-11-based PRO-350 and the Intel 8088-based Rainbow 100.
“DECmate” enters the record as computer series by DEC. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what DECmate, computer and series can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“DECmate” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, DECmate, computer and series provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5204792. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1980 and 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “DECmate” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.