I actually have core memory that I built myself on my desk right now! It’s only one bit, but consists of three cores, the two additional ones are not memory but

I actually have core memory that I built myself on my desk right now! It’s only one bit, but consists of three cores, the two additional ones are not memory but there to cancel out the big inductive pulse when “accessing” the core that is separate from the actual memory kickback pulse (real core memory does it by clever wiring across the entire plane of cores, no extra cores needed). You can see the kickback pulse here, the big one is where the bit was “set”. Reading is always destructive, so the next pulse does not have the kickback: https://live.staticflickr.com/7890/47241409541_5915191605_o_d.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/7890/47241409541_5915191605_o_... It’s great fun and actually very simple once you understood the (already relatively simple) concept. My “magnetic core bit” is literally just a few wires going through the cores (https://live.staticflickr.com/7874/33365624228_61caed6e71_k_d.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/7874/33365624228_61caed6e71_k_... ), though I later added a couple of transistors to form a sense amp. I got the cores by just looking for tiny ferrite cores on eBay, highly unlikely that they were meant as memory cores. For driving them, I just set my function generator to its maximum output, 10V at 50Ohm output impedance. Anything less than that and you barely get a kickback, so it’s really not efficient, in any way.