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From: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (99700000)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Magnetic amplifiers? [was Re: Mercury delay lines]
Message-ID: <4325@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 90 20:51:52 GMT
References: <2072@mindlink.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@darkstar.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU.UUCP (Jim Haynes)
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz  CATS
Lines: 20

Magnetic amplifiers were used in at least one commercial computer,
the Univac Solid-State 80/90.  (80 for 80-column IBM style punched
cards, 90 for 90-column Remington-Rand style punched cards).  It
wasn't entirely solid state, as there was about a 2-kilowatt
vacuum tube clock supply to make it all go.

There was a paper in IEEE Transactions on Computers (or probably it
was still IRE back then) about the logic.  Seems to me Univac has
had a history of taking some rather oddball kinds of logic and
using them in production computers.

At the time we didn't have transistors fast enough to be attractive
in real computers, so maybe that's why the magnetic amplifiers looked
temporarily promising.
haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu
haynes@ucscc.bitnet
..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes

"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an Art."
        Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle