Visitors to Murriyang, the Parkes 64m radiotelescope, are sometimes surprised that a telescope still at the leading edge of radio-astronomical research relies on decades-old hardware. The telescope’s control computers were upgraded in the early 1980s to then state-of-the-art PDP-11s. The PDP (Programmed Data Processor) series were small and affordable minicomputers produced by the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). (It is claimed that the choice of name intentionally avoided incorporating “computer” as computers at the time had a reputation of being large, complicated, and expensive!) The Parkes observatory relied on PDPs for the decades the followed, with the machines slowly being phased out in recent years. The last of the PDP-11s, which controlled the telescope’s telescope drive system, was switched off at 0UT on Wednesday February 4th. (The Apple logo on the front panel was added as a joke by local staff 15 years ago!)