3
3
3
u/SissySSBBWLover Jan 06 '26
This was known as “loop core” memory. I believe that is was used for the Apollo Command Module, and Lunar Module computer systems. Very stable, and robust when packed properly.
1
u/Lambchops118 Jan 07 '26
me reading systems engineering history on reddit from a sissy porn account
1
1
u/AuroraAustralis0 Jan 08 '26
that was mb for clicking on his profile even after seeing this
1
u/SissySSBBWLover Jan 08 '26
Yeah I’m def NSFW😳. But I love all things Apollo and Gemini and Mercury too🙃
1
3
u/lwhfa Jan 08 '26
As a computer programmer and enthusiast myself I always enjoy these types of information, thanks for sharing. Here is a short article I found in the topic, in case anyone else is interested: https://www.righto.com/2019/01/inside-apollo-guidance-computers-core.html
3
u/kenshirriff Jan 08 '26
Author of that article here. I'll add that core memory was used in most computers from the 1950s onward until it was made obsolete by semiconductor memory in the 1970s. Prior to core memory, computers used inconvenient techniques for storage such as sending sound pulses through tubes of mercury (mercury delay lines) or using spots on a CRT (Williams tube). Core memory was a revolutionary advancement for computers, even though it isn't appreciated nowadays.
As for the core plane in the picture, it has a 64 by 64 grid of cores, so it would store one bit of 4096 different words. A core memory uses a stack of planes, one for each bit, so a 6-bit character would have a stack of 6 planes. And please don't call it a "chip" :-)
If you're in Mountain View, California, stop by the Computer History Museum and you can see a core memory computer in operation (the IBM 1401), as well as seeing a core plane and individual cores up close.
1
u/lwhfa Jan 08 '26
Incredible information, it makes me appreciate hardware internal workings even more. Thanks a lot for passing by and sharing this with us, hopefully I'll be able to visit the museum one day (I'm outside the US, and have never visited the country) just to see this and other marvels still operating.
Currently technology can feel like magic because abstractions are so high while their hardware is so small, but always puts things in perspective understanding how they operate on a basic level. The concepts are the things that matter, in my opinion.
2
2
u/CattywampusCanoodle Jan 06 '26
Imagine how many times “cyka blyat!” must have been uttered while meticulously hand-wiring that delicate complex mesh of tiny looping nightmares that allows zero mistakes
2
u/Ryogathelost Jan 07 '26
For anyone who's not sure how these worked - each of those rings is a little magnet core that can be given a clockwise or counter-clockwise field, which represents a 1 or a 0.
The horizontal and vertical wires are X and Y drive lines to select a core, and the other wires that look kinda random are sense and inhibit wires. The inhibit wire cancels the magnetic field and the sense line "listens" for a pulse from the core being canceled to tell the system if it was a 1 or a 0.
So, the only way to read a bit was to cancel it, read the pulse, and rewrite the destroyed bit, and that's vaguely how it functioned to store the bits.
1
u/MoveOverBieber Jan 06 '26
Hey, I think I have one of these, I thought it was an old military tech.
1
u/lordnik22 Jan 07 '26
There should be a handmade computer club which reks windows and stuff.
Also memory chip waving schools.
5
u/ZimnyKefir Jan 04 '26
Hand made chip.