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From: hughes@endor.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Bored Core
Message-ID: <2174@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jun-87 01:23:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.2174
Posted: Wed Jun  3 01:23:07 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jun-87 03:36:39 EDT
References: <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu> <910@killer.UUCP> <15@gordon.UUCP> <2725@phri.UUCP> <8252@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Sender: news@husc6.UUCP
Reply-To: hughes@endor.UUCP (Brian Hughes)
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 18

In article <8252@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
> ...
>
>On an opposite note I remember stories of programs which would be run
>in the background to exercise core memories, that long unused areas
>tended to go bad.
>
	If you don't use magnetizable material for some period of time,
it loses its ability to be magnetized ?? Or, if you don't use a core
driver (semiconductor or vacuum tube) for some time, the driver will
go bad (faster than a used driver) ?? I don't believe it. I would believe
that a relay based memory (boy, are we talking ancient) would go bad
after long disuse because of contact oxidation.
	You don't believe computers once used relays ? In the lobby of
Aiken, one whole wall is taken up by PART of a relay-based computer.
Another wall has display cases that contain what was the latest computer
technology from IBM - various models of multi-pole double throw relays.
(Actually, I haven't ever seen the inside of the new RTs ... :-)).