--- Darrell Cormier
wrote: Just curious if any of you have every worked with a machine that used core memory. If I remember correctly you basically had a cage of "boards". Each board was an x-y grid of fine wire and around each intersection of the wires was a ring of some ferrous oxide material. A current was applied to a certain x-y coordinate to charge the ring thus representing a binary 1. This was a system that had a destructive read which required you to write back what you just read.
I have never used one myself but one of my college instructors had one of these cages of core memory modules from a machine he had used in his youth. Quite interesting.
Yes, I've worked on a few models that used core, including Data General Nova & Eclipse, DEC PDP-8i & PDP-11/24, Collins 8500C. I also have a core plane (4K x 1 bit), from a Colins 8400B here. I also worked on some Phillips terminals that used core memory.
______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca I worked on or sold all of the machines you mentioned except the Collins. Sold
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 01:53 pm, JAMES KNOTT wrote: the first Eclipse Computer in Oklahoma. Worked on PDP 7. 9. 8 and 11's. Used in Process Control. Great machines but my PC is more powerful but I miss being able to control a whole plant in 16KB of memory and 256 KB of disk. -- Russ