Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!wrgate!mrloog!kend
From: kend@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM (Ken Dickey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Mercury delay lines
Message-ID: <2694@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM>
Date: 7 Jun 90 16:33:20 GMT
References: <3040@softway.oz>
Sender: news@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM
Reply-To: kend@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM (Ken Dickey)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 15

In article <3040@softway.oz> adjg@softway.oz (Andrew Gollan) writes:
>I have always liked the idea of mercury delay lines, 
...
>Can anyone tell me what machines had these memories?


Maurice Wilkes's EDSAC, the first stored program to operate, used mercury
delay lines [as reported by Arthur Burks in "A History of Computing in
the Twentieth Century", Metropolis, Howlett, & Rota, Eds., Academic Press
(1980)--ISBN 0-12-491650-3].  EDVAC was designed to use mercury delay
lines and the design influenced a number of later computer designs.  I
don't know if it was ever built.  Anyone?


-Ken Dickey			kend@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM