29 Oct
2015
29 Oct
'15
10:22 a.m.
On 10/28/2015 11:48 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).
Yes, but I'm pretty sure the
concepts are related. The
remanent flux in the non-volatile side of the core affects
the flux hysteresis in the volatile side, so when you flip
the flux polarity on the volatile side, you can see some
effect caused by the non-volatile side.
- Another topic: what is a Honeywell Alert machine?
Searches are just bringing up some current-day "Honeywell
Instant Alert" messaging system.
It was a 24-bit DTL machine designed for the
X-15 project,
and then used in a number of other projects. It is about 25
Lbs (without memory), draws 25 A at 5 V, and runs off a 3
MHz clock. It is constructed of 6 multilayer PC boards with
ceramic flat packs on both sides. The boards are attached
to a motherboard with flexible PCB, so there are no
connectors inside the machine. They chose this for
reliability, it makes it REALLY hard to work on. There are
cold plates between the boards that conduct heat down to the
baseplate. The instruction set was apparently modeled after
some Honeywell business machine of the time. It has no
floating point hardware, but DOES have hardware multiply and
divide.
I have gotten it to run, sort of. Since I have no memory
for it, I can jam op codes into the data in plug and observe
the speed at which the memory address ripples.
Jon