[TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and Lower case at DEC

[Clem cole <clemc@ccc.com>]

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FYI.  I sent this to one of the lead DOC people from the old days to see if she knew.  Here is her answer.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Janet Egan" 
> Date: October 11, 2019 at 7:53:16 PM EDT
> To: "'Clem Cole'" 
> Subject: RE: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and Lower case at DEC
> 
> Hi Clem,
>  
> Hmm, I don’t remember whether the style guide addressed that. In the docs for  RSX-11M and such I always wrote it “PDP-11”, that is upper case with the dash.  I do remember the logo on the machine as always lower case with no dash. The PDP-8 had the same style logo. And you’re right about seeing the lower case on the cover of the handbooks.  I have never seen the lower case with the dash or the upper case without it. I don’t think I still have my copy of the style guide. Maybe I’ll take a look around my archives for it.   
>  
> What a fun question to be thinking about .
> Janet
>  
>  
> From: Clem Cole 
> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 9:47 AM
> To: Janet Egan
> Subject: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and Lower case at DEC
>  
> Janet,
>    I'm part of The Unix Historical Society (TUHS) mailing list and a topic came up that I thought you might be able to shed some light on.  The observation was that 'DEC seemed to have a schizophrenic attitude to wrt to use of upper and lower case WRT to the PDP-11 brand,' i.e. sometimes using "PDP-11" and sometimes "pdp11"  (but I note rarely if ever PDP11 or pdp-11) . For instance, the logo on the system itself was all lower: PDP-11/40 but DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; but when used on the places like the cover could be either  e.g. the "pdp11 peripherals handbook" to transcribe the cover exactly but it uses upper case "PDP-11" several times on pg 1-1 and the same on the binding.  But I could not find examples of pdp-11 or PDP11, i.e. if all lower it was with the dash or all upper without.
>  
>   Do you remember if there were rules or guidelines and if so what they might have been?
>  
> Thanks,
> Clem

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