4 ms·
Literally seeing the bits in your original article was a revelatory experience. Sometimes things are easier to understand when looking at earlier, historical te
by trilinearnz 6y ago
Literally seeing the bits in your original article was a revelatory experience. Sometimes things are easier to understand when looking at earlier, historical technology.
That linked article is also excellent. So exciting to see a visual analysis translate into a hexadecimal file!
- Stratoscope 6y agoYou may enjoy core memory, where you can see each bit (although not its state) with the naked eye. Here's a very pretty 4096 bit (64x64) core plane I bought a few years ago. The board measures 5" square: https://geary.smugmug.com/Computers/History/i-jb2rgF5/A https://geary.smugmug.com/Computers/History/i-jb2rgF5/A Core memory has the interesting property of destructive reads. You can write a bit directly, but you can't read one directly. Instead, you write the bit, and then a sense line tells you whether it changed or not. If your write-to-read changed the bit, then you issue another write to restore its original state. Here are a few of Ken's articles on core memory that explain that and much more: http://www.righto.com/2020/03/the-core-memory-inside-saturn-v-rockets.html http://www.righto.com/2020/03/the-core-memory-inside-saturn-... http://www.righto.com/2015/08/examining-core-memory-module-inside.html http://www.righto.com/2015/08/examining-core-memory-module-i... https://www.righto.com/2019/04/a-look-at-ibm-s360-core-memory-in-1960s.html https://www.righto.com/2019/04/a-look-at-ibm-s360-core-memor...
- spaceribs 6y agoyou left out the most interesting tidbit: these boards were hand stitched!
- trilinearnz 6y agoThat seems quite appropriate, given the loom-based origins of computing :)
- trilinearnz 6y agoLovely. Thank you for sharing these =)