DEC PDP 8

In 1957, Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson founded a company called Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) with the goal of manufacturing and selling high-speed digital circuits. By 1959, the company was well established, and it introduced its first computer, the PDP-1 (The letters stood for "Programmed Data Processor"). The PDP-1 incorporated some of the engineering advances that would later characterize minicomputers, especially in its internal design and attractive packaging. About 50 were produced,; its price was $120,000. DEC soon designed and began selling other machines as well. The PDP-1 was followed by a series of other more powerful, but less expensive products in the PDP line.

The PDP-8 was introduced in 1965. The first model sold for $18,000. Later versions of this machine that incorporated improvements in electronics appeared over the next decade. These became steadily smaller and cheaper, triggering a rush of new applications in which the computer was embedded into another system and sold by a third party (called an Original Equipment Manufacturer, or OEM). Some machines were specifically designed for time sharing and for business applications. Ultimately over 50,000 PDP-8's were sold (excluding those embedded as single chips into other systems).
For further information, see the Digital Equipment Corporation timeline. (Digital Equipment Corporation was acquired by Compaq Computer Corporation in 1998).