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We are planning to build a reconstruction of the PDP-6. The project is making a lot of progress, but currently we have a critical lack of software. Does anybody know where we can find software to run on the reconstructed machine?

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Bitsavers has some PDFs of printouts of tsExec1.4. Not sure if this is complete.

There's a lot of PDP-10 software e.g. at trailing-edge, I suppose at least some of that could be adapted to run on the PDP-6 (but you probably already thought of that).

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  • We have a digital copy of that program, but thank you for the link!
    – fuz
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 11:47
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    could you share it with bitsavers, then?
    – sendmoreinfo
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 15:54
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Old versions of the Monitor:
http://pdp-6.trailing-edge.com/

PDP-6 notes from ITS, includes some PDP-6 programs:
https://github.com/PDP-10/its/issues/278

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    Welcome to Retrocomputing! As it stands, this is a borderline link-only answer. While the link may answer the question, it would add value to you answer if you could elaborate on the contents of your links and ITS.
    – JAL
    Commented Jan 1, 2017 at 21:46
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Update. There is now quite a bit of PDP-6 software, but almost all of it from MIT:

  • Monitor from DEC.
  • SYSTEM GEN, low level DECtape formatting.
  • MACDMP, file system on DECtapes.
  • DDT, debugger.
  • TECO, editor.
  • MIDAS, assembler.
  • STINK, linker.
  • LISP.
  • Spacewar!
  • LIFE.
  • MacHack VI... we have a timesharing version, unsure if it runs standalone on a PDP-6.
  • David Silver's flight simulator.

Get the latest updates here: https://github.com/PDP-10/its/issues?q=label%3Apdp6

EDIT: This was created to collect everything:
https://github.com/PDP-6/pdp6-programs

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The program was MAC HACK VI. This link doesn't give access to the program, but it may give you some leads about where to find it. It was a chess playing program, and a good one for its time frame. https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Mac+Hack

Also, here's a link to pdp- TECO. The best text editor around in 1965. This link does have a Download button, which I have not tried.

https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5917

You might also want SHRDLU, a language understanding prgram written by Terry Winograd. You can get it here:

http://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/shrdlu/

Trouble is, you'll also have to get MacLisp in order to run it.

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  • I think I have a copy of MacHack, although it's not named as such. I do have TECO and MacLisp up and running.
    – Lars Brinkhoff
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 11:28
  • It has been confirmed to be MacHack VI. I also have a second version which draws on a Type 340 display. Both versions are running on a PDP-10 emulator.
    – Lars Brinkhoff
    Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 7:47
  • The trouble with SHRDLU is not getting Maclisp, which we do have running. It's that SHRDLU is written for an ancient version of Maclisp we don't have.
    – Lars Brinkhoff
    Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 7:48
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A significant chunk of PDP-6 software has surfaced: JOSS.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM5437.html

It's being typed in: https://github.com/PDP-6/JOSS-II

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