A typical configuration included an enclosed 6'X20" rack; four boxes holding (1) two tape drives, (2) display scope and input knobs, (3) control console and (4) data terminal interface; and a keyboard.

A dozen LINC computers were assembled by their eventual biomedical researcher owners in a 1963 summer workshop at MIT.

DEC's pioneer C. Gordon Bell[7] states that the LINC project began in 1961, with first delivery in March 1962, and the machine was not formally withdrawn until December 1969.

A total of 50 were built (all using DEC System Module Blocks and cabinets), most at Lincoln Labs, housing the desktop instruments in four wooden racks.

In these, the tall cabinet sitting behind a white Formica-covered table held two somewhat smaller metal boxes holding the same instrumentation, a Tektronix display oscilloscope over the "front panel" on the user's left, a bay for interfaces over two LINC-Tape drives on the user's right, and a chunky keyboard between them.

Location 0 supports the single-level of subroutine call, automatically being updated with a return address on every jump instruction.

[8] A later modification to the LINC added a 12-bit Z register to facilitate extended precision arithmetic, and an interrupt was provided forcing execution to location 21 (octal).

Alphanumeric input/output devices included a dedicated keyboard, and the ability to display text on the attached point-addressed CRT.

The repetition rate can be varied over four orders of magnitude by means of an analog knob and a four-position decade switch, from about one step per second to about half of the full speed.

In contrast, the LINCtape was a small, nimble device which stored about 400K, had a fixed formatting track allowing data to be repeatedly read and re-written to the same locations, and took less than a minute to spool from one end to the other.

In some modes of operation, the data transfers were audible over the built-in loudspeaker and produced a very characteristic series of harsh bird-like squawks with varying pitch.

The display screen was a CRT about 5 inches square which was actually a standard Tektronix oscilloscope with special plug-in amplifiers.

The CRT used a very-long-persistence white or yellow phosphor, so that lines and curves drawn point-by-point at a relatively slow speed would remain visible throughout programmed drawing loops that frequently lasted half a second or more.

Programmers quickly learned to move any negative displayed data up one point to hide the artifact that otherwise tended to appear at y=0.

Notoriously, a tight loop that displayed points repetitively in one place on the screen would burn a permanent dark hole in the delicate phosphor in well under a minute; programmers had to be ready to hit the Stop lever fast if a very bright spot suddenly appeared because of a programming mistake.

A subroutine would convert the LINC character codes into ASCII and use timing loops to toggle the relay on and off, generating the correct 8-bit output to control the Teletype printer.

The LINC connector module included bays for two plug-in chassis allowing custom interfacing to experimental setups.

It was a capable and improved machine, and was more stable than the LINC-8, but architecturally was still an imperfect hybrid of a LINC and a PDP-8, full of many small technical glitches.

Digital produced a version of the PDP-11/03 called the MINC-11, housed in a portable cart, and equipable with Digital-designed laboratory I/O modules supporting capabilities such as analog input and output.