2kb main frame memory

[Bob Kontak]

Young college kid living at my brother's rental place had a cube which he said was 2kb of memory from a large computer removed in the 70's. Must be from the 60's.

Anyone recognize this It's aircraft quality. 3-4 pounds.

[KFC911]

Though I "drove" IBM's largest and most state of the art (10 million $) mainframes for some 25 years and had total access to their "guts" at my disposal, I've never even seen "mainframe memory" before ....can't help ya out here. That's very cool though....

[craigster59]

Don't know much about computers, but with a wad of singles like that, you must be contemplating a visit to the local Gentleman's Club.

[motion]

I dunno.... I don't think 60s or 70s mainframes had modular style memory. The ITT 465L I spent time on in the Air Force was from the late 60s and had huge refrigerator-sized cabins filled with ferrite-core memory matrixes. I'm guessing modular 2K memory didn't appear until the late 70s or early 80s.

[KFC911]

Not disagreeing with ya Motion (I truly don't know), but that thing is HUGE for just 2k...it's got to be earlier than when I was in the game (beginning in the late 70s) considering how much memory was available on the ones I was familiar with.

[jriera]

I will bet a penny that is memory from an IBM 360, maybe even earlier, even if the picture is fuzzy and can 'see' the toroid's .

[Schumi]

Thats is a stack of core memory - the 'cores' are the little torus shapes that store individual bits.

Stacks like that were used in the early to early 60's PDP machines. Looks to me like more than 2kb... each core is a bit, so you can count the rows, columns, and stacks to find out how much it is.

[Schumi]

Core memory history from the PCmuseum

[motion]

IBM 360 memory: Vintage 1969 IBM360 Magnetic Core Memory Plane with Drivers | eBay

Nice detail of USSR ferrite core memory: USSR Soviet Russian Magnetic Ferrite Core Memory Block 4 Plates 4096B 1976 Kursk | eBay

This might be what Bob has in his post? Vintage Core Memory | eBay

[Schumi]

All those are cards. His is a true stack.

I think it's old, maybe even late 50's. They did the stacks when the cores and wires were really big, but as it advances and it got smaller, they went away from stacks and into just putting it all on 1 card.

[KFC911]

Thanks for the trip down "memory lane" guys! IBM 360s (Assembler language programming anyone? ) and PDP11s...all were "ancient history" by the time I got my degree. Though we had them in college (or access to them remotely...370s by then), I've never even seen one in person...ah, the good old daze

[rick-l]

Aircraft quality? It has been a long time but it kind of looks like an AP-101C memory used in the B52 which was based on the IBM 360

[KFC911]

Hey Bob, that "cube" (non-volatile memory) still retains all of it's data. When you figure out what all the 1s and 0s represent, you will have a map to untold wealth, super models, and the fountain of youth. I've started the debug for you:

1001101000101011011100111111001....

You're welcome

[widebody911]

Best I can do is $20

[HarryD]

Sigh. ... Kids. .. Back when I got started, an IBM360 or DEC PDP11 was the cats meow when you were running an IBM 1620.



Add a card reader/puncher and an optional external disk storage for full functionality.

IBM Symbolic Programming Language anyone?

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by Schumi

Core memory history from the PCmuseum

Sweet! That is really close to what it looks like in the link.

I will be over to his house again tomorrow. I will bring my real camera and get a macro of the magnetic doughnuts for kicks.

Sorry so long in responding.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by widebody911

Best I can do is $20

Boat anchor? Door stop?

[jriera]

Originally Posted by HarryD

Sigh. ... Kids. .. Back when I got started, an IBM360 or DEC PDP11 was the cats meow when you were running an IBM 1620.


Add a card reader/puncher and an optional external disk storage for full functionality.

IBM Symbolic Programming Language anyone?

Not much SPS but TONS of Assembler F ... and yes, still have some punch cards and optical tapes for the PDP11.

Night operator for a 360-22 ... IPL by switches ... good old days ...

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by KC911

Not disagreeing with ya Motion (I truly don't know), but that thing is HUGE for just 2k...it's got to be earlier than when I was in the game (beginning in the late 70s) considering how much memory was available on the ones I was familiar with.

The Apple II was 32/48/64K using IC RAM in the late 1970's. That looks like a ferrite core module. The PR1ME 300 I used in the early 1970's used ferrite memory. 32K was several 19" rack mount boards.

[scottmandue]

Wow, didn't any of you guys see transformers?