On April 23-24, 1999, in a cooperative effort, The Rhode Island Computer Museum and the Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island placed in preservation the last commercially operating Digital Equipment Corporation DECSYSTEM 2020 (KS-10) computers in the New England area.

Approximately 20 years old, these machines were finally powered down on Thursday, the 21st. On Friday, crews dismantled the cabling and prepared individual pieces for shipment. On Saturday, the 23rd, the equipment was taken from its fourth floor location at the Strategic Planning Institute in Cambridge, MA and loaded onto two trucks for transport. On the 24th, the computers were off-loaded into temporary storage.

RCS/RI received some of the spare disk drive sets and one system is held by a private enthusiast in New Hampshire. A second system will be privately preserved, but hosted by RICM along with its own system. Eventually, these two systems will be restored to a working configuration, perhaps with Internet access.

Special thanks must to be accorded to Megan Gentry, who led the recovery team and coordinated the tri-state rescue effort; and the other participants, Carl Friend, Allison Parent, Chris Tucker, Merle Peirce, Richard Maliska, Don Mastrovito, Alla Andreyava, K. Ramm, Rich Grosz, Devon McCullough and Bob Houk.

As one participant said, "This has been a chance for me to actually see and touch equipment that I had only read about."

The KS10 is the smallest in the PDP10 family of 36 bit computers manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation. It was introduced in 1978 as a small low cost version of the KL10. It has 512 Words of Cache Memory and supports a maximum of 512 Kwords (36-bit) of memory.

This machine has 512 KWords of RAM memory, a TU77 Tape Drive, a RP06 Disk Drive, 32 serial ports and a Line Printer interface.

The KS10 chassis in the 2020 contains the following boards:

Slot#	Module#	Option	Description
1	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
2	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
3	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
4	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
5	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
6	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
7	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
8	M8629	MMA	64KW RAM
9	M8618	MMC	Memory Controller
10			Empty
11	M8623	CRM	Micro Controller
12	M8622	CRA	Micro Controller
13	M8620	DPE	Data Path
14	M8621	DPM	Data Path
15			Empty
16	M8619	UBA#3	Unibus Adapter
17			Empty
18	M8616	CSL	Console
19	M8619	UBA#1	Unibus Adapter
20			Empty
21AB	M9014	RH11	UNIBUS to 3 H854s
21CD	M7297	RH11	MASSBUS parity control
21EF	M7296	RH11	MASSBUS control and status
22	M7295	RH11	MASSBUS bus control
23	M7294YA	RH11	MASSBUS data buffer and control
24CD	M5904	RH11	MASSBUS control transceiver
24EF	M688	RH11	UNIBUS power fail driver
25CD	M5904	RH11	MASSBUS control transceiver
25EF	M688	RH11	UNIBUS power fail driver
26CD	M5904	RH11	MASSBUS control transceiver
27CD	MG727		Unibus Grant
28AB	M9300		UNIBUS terminator
28CD	MG727		Unibus Grant
29AB	M9300		UNIBUS terminator
29CD	MG727		Unibus Grant

The Unibus chassis in the 2020 contains the following boards:

Slot# Module# Option Description
1      M9014    RH11    UNIBUS to 3 H854s e
2
3
4
5      M7819    DZ11-A  8-line double-buffered
   async EIA with modem control
6      M7819    DZ11-A  8-line double-buffered
   async EIA with modem control
7      M7819    DZ11-A  8-line double-buffered
   async EIA with modem control
8      M7819    DZ11-A  8-line double-buffered
   async EIA with modem control
9U     M9202         Unibus Jumper
9M     MG727         Grant
10
11U    M9202         Unibus Jumper
11M    M7297    RH11 MASSBUS parity control
11L    M7296    RH11 MASSBUS control and status
12     M7295    RH11 MASSBUS bus control
13     M7294YA  RH11 MASSBUS data buffer and ctl.
14M    M5904    RH11 MASSBUS control transceiver
14L    M688     RH11 UNIBUS power fail driver
15M    M5904    RH11 MASSBUS control transceiver
16M    M5904    RH11 MASSBUS control transceiver
17M    MG727         Grant
18U    M9300         UNIBUS terminator
18M    MG727         Grant
19U    M9202         Unibus Jumper
19M    MG727         Grant
20
21U    M9202         Unibus Jumper
21
22     M8586    LP20 LP20 control
23     M8571    LP20 ?
24U    M9300         UNIBUS terminator
24M    M8585    LP20 ?