plated wire memory

Diane Bruce db at db.net
Sun Oct 20 09:58:16 CDT 2019


On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 10:45:27AM -0400, Nigel Johnson via cctalk wrote:
> I remember an IBM engineer talking about this at our ham radio club. The 

de VA3DB

> wire was coiled inside a drum and pulses were sent down the wire.  The 
> 'read head' was  a magnetic pickup at the other end of the coil - and 


This sounds like delay line memory.
Lot's of info on this on web.

> access time was however long it took the pulse to arrive at the other 
> end.  Therefore storage capacity was inversely proportional to data 
> quantity, however at that time I was working with 660kB Univac FH330 
> drums for swapping and the 2-ton Fastrand for 164kB of long-term 
> storage, so it has to be taken in context!
> 
> Although the read was actually non-destructive, the pulse had to be 
> regenerated to go around agaiun.
> 
> Is that maybe what you are thinking of?
> 
> cheers,
> 
> Nigel
> 
> 
> On 20/10/2019 10:35, dwight via cctalk wrote:
> > I was just listening to a video on the Voyager space craft. It used an interesting type of memory, called magnetic wire memory. There is only a little bit of information of it on the web. It is clever in that has a non-destructive read. I just wondered if any one else was familiar with this type of memory.
> > Dwight
> >
> >
>   
> 
> -- 
> Nigel Johnson
> MSc., MIEEE
> VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
> 
> Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
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