After the discussion last week about core rope, and the mention of the AGC implementation
by Noel, and the comment by Rick about the application of the term "core rope",
I took some time to do some further research.
For the sake of accuracy I figured I should correct or add to my own comments: there were
(at least) two notably different techniques used, and - as Rick implied - the application
of the term core rope may not be historically accurate for one of those techniques.
It's detailed here, if anyone else is interested in the technical minutiae of this
obsolete technology:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/corerope/index.html
(As an aside, the wikipedia article about core rope is quite incorrect or misleading in
relation to its mention of the AGC, the technique it describes is not that used by the
AGC.)