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The article starts with "This unusual storage mechanism used a stack of Mylar sheets to hold 15,360 bits, equivalent to 1920 bytes."
by gopalv 7y ago
The article starts with
"This unusual storage mechanism used a stack of Mylar sheets to hold 15,360 bits, equivalent to 1920 bytes."
- wil421 7y agoYes I know it even has a picture. My question is what is it?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chiph 7y agoIt's a sheet of Mylar that has had conductive traces deposited on it, forming wires. This means it can be bent to go around curves without the use of additional connectors. The interesting thing to me about the TROS sheets is that they were initially manufactured to be the same [0] but were programmed by punching out (cutting) the traces in places to zig-zag the current path either through a transformer loop or around it. Presumably there was a machine that positioned a punch to the correct position, based on coordinates from an input punch-card deck, before descending and cutting through the traces. [0] Note that there are two designs - one with the inputs on the left and one with the inputs on the right, to line up on the connector block to the diodes. Although it's possible it's the same design, just flipped before the punching step.
- kens 7y agoStrangely enough, there are three tape designs that have the conductors offset slightly. The stack of Mylar tapes cycles through the three designs. The purpose is to prevent wires in neighboring layers from being parallel, which would cause stray capacitance.
- wil421 7y agoGot it. When I saw the squares it reminded me of magnetic core memory. I thought the squares were the punches but I can see it in this image[1]. [1] http://static.righto.com/images/ibm-360-tros/tros-diagram.jpg http://static.righto.com/images/ibm-360-tros/tros-diagram.jp...
- plmu 7y agoJust read the article in full. Mylar is even contrasted to core memory.