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My mother was a systems analyst in the 1960s. She got a contract as part of a team installing a brand-new IBM/360 at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, her jo
by a4isms 4y ago
My mother was a systems analyst in the 1960s. She got a contract as part of a team installing a brand-new IBM/360 at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, her job was to write administration software.
She told me it was a top-of-the-line model with 64K of RAM. At some point, it had a malfunction and they had to replace one of its memory "boards," which were lattices with ferromagnetic cores suspended on filaments. She brought the defective board home for me to play with.
Although I went on to write software on punch cards, and built a PC in the 1980s, I think the moment that I held core memory in my hands was the closest I've really gotten to "the metal" in my life.
- unnouinceput 4y ago>...I think the moment that I held core memory in my hands was the closest I've really gotten to "the metal" in my life< Why is that? You don't build your own computers anymore? Or write a small for fun application on ESP32 that you slap on a board made by yourself? That's the fun, to have a helicopter toy flying your own board + software.
- a4isms 4y agoNo, even when I put together a PC, I was putting chips and boards together. But as a boy holding that memory board, I was looking at the cores that held individual bits of memory. Instead of connecting things with ribbon cables or whatever, I was looking at tiny wire that would transmit individual bits of information. Completely different level of abstraction.
- beezle 4y agoI have some core memory - one batch in a small container, the other is wired and mounted inside a picture frame and hangs on the wall. Neat stuff