12 Apr
2024
12 Apr
'24
3:05 p.m.
On 4/12/24 14:27, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote:
On Fri, 2024-04-12 at 16:13 -0400, Paul Koning via
cctalk wrote:
One that comes to mind is the Datatron/Burroughs B-205, used as a prop
in several Hollywood productions (or at least pieces of one)..
The drum there was divided into two areas; the "main storage" area where
each track stored 100 words of 11 digit BCD and the "quick access"
tracks that stored only a tenth as much, 20 words. The deal was that
writing a word to the quick access tracks would write it 10 times, so
that access time to a word was cut by 90%. Clever.
--Chuck
Not all that fast, well, it depends on what
you're comparing with.
Given tube logic with cycle times measures in microseconds, quite
possibly serial rather than parallel organization, those acoustic or
drum memory systems weren't all that terrible.
Speaking of drum machines....