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Xortran - A PDP-11 Neural Network With Backpropagation in Fortran IV

46 points| rahen | 3 months ago |github.com

11 comments

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jacobgorm|3 months ago

When I studied cognitive psychology I remember one of the professors told us about how they had been playing with implementing neurals nets on their PDP11 back in the day. I remember thinking that had to have been be a total waste of time. Silly me.

rahen|3 months ago

The first convolutional neural network, the Neocognitron, was AFAIK implemented on a PDP-11 as well: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neocognitron%3A-A-neur...

No backpropagation back then, this only appeared around 1986 with Rumelhart, probably on VAX machines by that time.

The 11/34 was hardly a powerhouse (roughly a turbo XT) but it was sturdy, could handle sustained load and its FPU made the whole difference.

fortran77|3 months ago

I did a few systems like this in the early 80s, but by then I was on a Vax and running Fortran 77.

Nice to see this. It’s a good way to learn the basics without getting bogged down with modern complexities.