Hand-wired core for ROM?

Vincent Slyngstad v.slyngstad at frontier.com
Fri Apr 10 11:08:32 CDT 2015


From: geneb: Friday, April 10, 2015 8:32 AM
> I want to make sure it wasn't in use before I double-down on calling 
> shennanigans on "Joe" in this thread:
> http://hackaday.com/2015/04/08/restoring-a-vintage-pdp-1104-computer/#comments

Since he's talking about PDP-8 and PDP-14 machines, I'm guessing he's
talking about the MR8E core rope memory.

> As far as I know, machines of that era used cores that were so small the DEC 
> hired master seamstresses (myth?) to make them.  It's certainly not something 
> that would be done in the field by John Q. Programmer.

>From what I've read, MR8E were supposed to be custom configured
at the factory, but it's conceivable that changes could be made by the
customer.

The Field Service Guide actually recommends re-soldering (after
re-tinning) the connections on boards that were unreliable.

    Vince 



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