28 Jun
2007
28 Jun
'07
4:07 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Yet another oddity discovered today: it would seem that the rotating magnetic
fixed-head disk in the Burroughs L-2000/3000/4000/5000 machines wasn't for
secondary storage (as I'd assumed), it was the primary store in place of the
core typically found in systems of the time. I bet there can't be many
machines around which had rotating store as the primary memory.
On the contrary, numerous 'lower-end' machines of the 50s and early 60s used
drums as the primary store, Bendix G15, IBM 650, LGP-<something>, I'm
forgetting some of the other ones. I believe it was fairly typical to use the
drum for the accumulator/registers as well with more heads/track at those
locations or some such scheme to get more frequent access to them per rotation.
(Or do you mean there are few of those machines still surviving?)