On 2015-Oct-28, at 6:35 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
> On 10/28/2015 06:32 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> That scheme is also known as BiAx. The docs with my Honeywell Alert machine
> described the same thing.
> As far as I can tell, the EMM core memory unit that came with it is NOT BiAx,
> however.
>
> Jon
Very interesting to hear of another scheme, but it's not clear whether it
applies to the Gemini auction memory.
The BiAX scheme shows cores with the holes (apertures as they're called in the
business) perpendicular to each other.
In contrast, the Gemini auction cores have two apertures with the same
orientation (a figure 8).
This abstract
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1961P%26SS....7..184W
describes BiAX in distinction to "other multi-aperture" techniques, so the
Gemini auction memory is not necessarily BiAX.
From what I've seen described, the perpendicular aperture orientation was
fundamental to the BiAX scheme.
-
Another topic: what is a Honeywell Alert machine? Searches are just bringing up
some current-day "Honeywell Instant Alert" messaging system.
