4 ms·

Not if you're in space on a mission.

• anyfoo 8y ago
  Yes, but since you mentioned the repeating pattern (or absence thereof), I think we thought you were talking about mistakes in the bit pattern, and not material failure? And in this case, I certainly hope they just read out all the bits and compared them against expectations before launch.
  • astrodust 8y ago
    It's surely one of those things that's very, very fussy to assemble but relatively easy to verify. Someone built their own rope memory reader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WquhaobDqLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WquhaobDqLU) to access data stored in the Apollo modules. Assembling core memory is a lot easier, there's a very simple pattern, and verifying that it works correctly isn't that hard either. This is like weaving a complicated rug with many colors and a single-color rug.