r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖 is a user on mastodon.social. You can follow them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse. If you don't, you can sign up here.
r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖 @cypnk

The reason we refer to "core" memory or "core dump" is because how early memory was actually designed. These are magnetic cores with wire woven through (by hand, I might add) which contained program instructions

Core memory went away when silicon took over in the mid 70s

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@cypnk A professor I had in college had a necklace of core memory.

@cypnk that's crazy that people wired those tiny magnets by hand, considering how automated things are today! Out of curiosity, where do you find this stuff?

@Orwellia Many a mis(well)spent hour on the dark corners of the internet. When I'm not killing brain cells with sleep deprivation, this is what I do ;)

@cypnk well, thank you for sharing the fruits of your labor with us! As someone who grew up with PCs it's eye-opening to see what early computing was like

@Orwellia It's a fascinating aspect. I encourage you to take a deep dive (watch out for the time!) into some forums like HAM radio and so on. There are lots of old-timers sharing photos like this

@cypnk Will do! I blame you for all the procrastination I will undertake this weekend, though

@Orwellia @cypnk You can visit some core memory at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. computerhistory.org/revolution

@cypnk
I wonder if the people who were specialized in magnetic cores succed to evolve when silicon taked the lead !
The architecture should be (quite) the same :D