Hi,
From: "Gavin Melville" <gavin.melville at
acclipse.co.nz>
Subject: Info about a Mullard Core
Hi,
I have had for many years a large core, and while I don't really
want to
part with it, I also see what little pieces of core sell for on
ebay....
I was told when given this about 15 years ago that it was from a
Burroughs mainframe which was installed at the Cadburys head office in
New Zealand and that they had paid GBP 20,000 for it in 1960.
20,000 for the core or for the mainframe?
How sure are you about it being Burroughs? Wouldn't they be using
U.S. components rather than British?
I know Cadburys bought an ICT 1300 series machine around 1963/4, and
its now in a museum in NZ. It was a 48 bit machine, but I think it
had a much smaller store of 1200 or 2000 words and would have cost
around 100,000 GBP. I have read there was an option to replace all
the 'barn door' core stores with a single store of 4,000 words of 48
bits, though I've never seen one, nor the logic diagrams. I have
always wondered whether it used a full binary decode (using 16384
words to provide 4000 words of usable memory) of the 14 bits rather
than a BCD decode. The 1300s use lots of Mullard components.
Just a small piece of a jigsaw puzzle, maybe not even the right puzzle!
Roger Holmes.
Owner of the last working ICT 1301.
I have
been unable to find out if this was correct however. Does anyone on
the list know anything about it ?
pictures at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8788341 at N05/?saved=1
There are 921600 cores in the array, which is made up of 48x48
cores, 4
to a layer and 100 layers.
_________________________________
Regards,
Gavin Melville
Senior Engineer
Acclipse Electronic Ltd