Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!bunker!stpstn!aad
From: aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Core memory
Message-ID: <1887@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jul 88 16:00:15 GMT
References: <1486@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1010@garth.UUCP> <458@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri)
Organization: The Stepstone Corporation, Sandy Hook, CT
Lines: 19

In article <458@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>... Last I heard, the Shuttle memories are cores. A core memory
>>can retain its information for hours, weeks, or years without any power.
>You are kidding, aren't you?  core is the lowest-density recording
>medium since paper tape.  The shuttle would use bubbles for nonvolatile,
>read-write memory, I would hope.  Even EEROM, which must be in the
>system somewhere...  Not even NASA would be 15 years behind on
>technology... ;-)

Back at CMU I had the occasion to take a History of Computing course
from one Jim Tomayko, who had worked for NASA for a good while.  He said that
the shuttle machines each had 106k of CORE.  EEPROMS are, I believe,
too sensitive to large, powerful cosmic rays that tend to buzz around up there.

-- 
@disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my
	    employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34)
beak is								  beak is not
Anthony A. Datri,SysAdmin,StepstoneCorporation,stpstn!aad