When I was in 7th grade in 1975 we were fortunate to have a PDP-8/I (I think it was an I) with a half dozen teletypes, VT50 terminal, and a high speed paper tape reader. Later it was upgraded with a PDP-8/E and dual DEC tapes (“floppy tapes”) a couple DEC Writers.
This was where I first learned computer machine language. You had to toggle in the bits directly with switches on the front and read the lights (originally grain-of-wheat-bulbs and later versions used LEDs). Now this was mostly for the experience of it because even then they had a multi user EDU_BASIC and OS/8 to make programming and using more useful and less arduous.
Reading over the different types now I am confused in my memory over which model is which. I know we had the paddle switches where 1 was up and 0 was down. That looks like the 8/E but I also remember rows of LEDs and not so much the selector switch would be the 8/I. Possibly I am conflating the two models.
I purchased the 2016 version of this kit and soldering will start soon:
http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8