Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!unisoft!gethen!abostick
From: abostick@gethen.UUCP (Alan Bostick)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Core memory
Message-ID: <1107@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 23 Jul 88 01:28:34 GMT
References: <1486@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: abostick@gethen.UUCP (Alan Bostick)
Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland
Lines: 16

In article <1486@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> shoat@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Dave Shoat) writes:
>I recently took apart a core memory board from a PDP8, just out of
>curiosity. I was quite amazed at the small size of the magnets - I had to
>put the board under a microscope to see any detail at all. The whole thing
>was very intricately made. Does anyone know hoe core memory was manufactured?
>Was it knitted? By hand or by machine? I'd be interested to know.

This is off-the-cuff information, and should not be taken as gospel.

Core memory was made by hand, which is explanation for its expense.
American computer manufacturers tended to farm it out to plants in the
Pacific Rim (e.g. in Hong Kong or Singapore) where life --errr, Labor--
was cheap.

					Alan Bostick
					ucbvax!unisoft!gethen!abostick