On 2015-Oct-28, at 4:41 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
>> On Oct 28, 2015, at 7:32 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilp...@cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
>> On 2015-Oct-28, at 2:45 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Paul Koning <paulkon...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Oct 28, 2015, at 12:58 PM, feldma...@comcast.net wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> A core memory unit from Gemini 3 is up for auction:
>>>> http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2015/10/auction-memory-first-computer-space?et_cid=4906629&et_rid=742193094&location=top
>>>>
>>>> Comical. "Chip" indeed. And "first use of core memory ... in an era of
>>>> rotating drum memory" -- in 1965? I wonder why they have such a clueless
>>>> person write their blurbs.
>>>>
>>>> paul
>>> Seems like it's worth is totally dependent on its provenance...how do you
>>> prove that?
>>
>> Not a proof in entirety of the claim, but from a ref and looking at the
>> closeup pics from the auction website, it is an unusual form of core memory
>> where the cores have two holes through them, like a blocky figure 8,
>> apparently an aspect of a technique to achieve non-destructive readout. This
>> is quite unusual and would go some ways to showing a provenance to the
>> Gemini project.
>>
> I didn't realize there is any such thing as non-destructive read core memory.
> Google does turn up a few obscure articles about such things. It doesn't
> seem to have caught on, and I wonder why it was used here.
>
> So that phrase actually may be accurate. But does that clearly tie it to
> Gemini? And even if it does, that doesn't amount to provenance as a flight
> item; it might just as easily have been a spare, or a failed test module, or
> something similar that never left the ground.
>
> paul
No, it doesn't, without more research (that's why I qualified the observation
with "not a proof in entirety").
I'm just noting:
- A source describes this type of memory as being used in the Gemini
computer.
- It's a very unusual form of core memory - I had never heard of it
before either -
so there's not a lot of other equipment for it to have come from.
The techique may even only ever have been used in Gemini.
- The matrix size of 4096 is consistent with that described for Gemini,
although that is a common matrix size.
