28 Oct
2015
28 Oct
'15
9:48 p.m.
On 2015-Oct-28, at 6:35 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 10/28/2015 06:32 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Very interesting to hear of another scheme, but it's not clear whether it applies to
the Gemini auction memory.
The BiAX scheme shows cores with the holes (apertures as they're called in the
business) perpendicular to each other.
In contrast, the Gemini auction cores have two apertures with the same orientation (a
figure 8).
This abstract
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1961P%26SS....7..184W
describes BiAX in distinction to "other multi-aperture" techniques, so the
Gemini auction memory is not necessarily BiAX.
Not a proof in entirety of the claim, but from a
ref and looking at the closeup pics from the auction website, it is an unusual form of
core memory where the cores have two holes through them, like a blocky figure 8,
apparently an aspect of a technique to achieve non-destructive readout. This is quite
unusual and would go some ways to showing a provenance to the Gemini project.
That scheme is also known as BiAx. The docs with my Honeywell Alert machine
described the same thing.
As far as I can tell, the EMM core memory unit that came with it is NOT BiAx, however.
Jon From what I've seen described, the perpendicular
aperture orientation was fundamental to the BiAX scheme.
-
Another topic: what is a Honeywell Alert machine? Searches are just bringing up some
current-day "Honeywell Instant Alert" messaging system.