12 Dec
2015
12 Dec
'15
9:21 p.m.
On 12/12/2015 09:37 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
The IBM 2848, the control unit for the 2260 terminals,
contained
mercury (!) delay line for the video memory. There may have been some
compensation for the transmission to the terminal, but I have have not
seen the technical details - I think it was not a concern, probably.
I don't know where you got this information. I can find a
NUMBER of references that say it was a wiresonic delay
line. (Due to wiresonic being a trademark, IBM used a
different name for it.)
But, most certainly, IBM did not have barrels of mercury in
mainframe computer rooms in the 1960's.
Page 2-29 has the description of the magnetostrictive delay
line, see :
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/2260/Y27-2046-3_2260_2848_FETOM_Mar68.pdf
Jon