"Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years between about 1955 and 1975. Such memory is often just called core memory, or, informally, core.
Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magnetic material (usually a semi-hard ferrite) as transformer cores, where each wire threaded through the core serves as a transformer winding. Three or four wires pass through each core.
Each core stores one bit of information. A core can be magnetized in either the clockwise or counter-clockwise direction. The value of the bit stored in a core is zero or one according to the direction of that core's magnetization."
I understand this.The basic concept, Quite well actually. You store a 1 or a 0 on a transformer, or in the case of tape, you magnetise or demagnetise a line.
That is not a problem for me.
But what I am looking into right now is how the registers worked.
It seems the registers were well, registers that held the location of all sets of instructions.
So if you wanted to process code, you would have to refer to the register to know what is where. And align the head accordingly.
But this also means that registers need to have a mechanism to talk to loops and modify themselves according to the loop count.
so it seems like registers also needed some form of memory to be able to do that.
I dont know if this sounds like gibberish
@Full_marx My understanding is that a register is just a storage location very close to the processor core. You can hold numbers, like the value of a variable, and call it in when needed.
Heading there now, placing a link here for reference.
http://foldoc.org/The%20story%20of%20Mel,%20a%20Real%20Programmer
But I will need to go and re-read the story to refresh my mind.
@Full_marx Found a good definition for Register :
^--- This site is a treasure.
okay so the register of the concerned machine was built into the instruction set.
5 bits for the command
13 bits for the track/sector location of the operand
13 bits for the track/sector of the next command’s address
command | operand | next address | some weird index
@design_RG Is there such a thing as Memory Porn 😅 .
Looks beautiful
@Full_marx I am suspect so say, since I am very fond of History, including Tech and Computing History.
If you ever visit the San Francisco Bay area, try to visit the Computer Museum in Mountainview, California. Yeah, that city, now Googles flagship address. (the GooglePlex is nearby and also worth a visit to gawk)
Plan to spend a day on it!
I think the history of computing is essential if you want to be an efficient coder.
Make Vacccum Tubes Great Again !!
@Full_marx We might end up on a dystopic future where energy is at a premium, and you might have to pedal your bike as a generator to power up some device. No internet, or only limited local mesh networks.
Efficiency would be a priority once again.
I find it very inspiring to learn how people worked with what they had and built the roots of what we have today.
There are some great docus and even feature films talking about the Bletchley park code breaking groups, where Alan Turing worked and created some specially designer devices to help agilize code breaking. The "Bombes".
The very first electronic computer was the Colossus, British and from that era. Never spoken or mentioned much since ALL Bletchley work was classified until the mid 70s.
@design_RG Isn't it funny how war accelerated the growth of so much technology?
@design_RG Concerning mesh networks
I think server decentralisation is up next.
So yeah, anti bloat is gonna be a thing soon.
@Full_marx I did read an awesome article on The Guardian (my favourite newspaper, the first one I open anyday) which is VERY relevant.
Will need to post it later as single post to try and get people's attention to read it - I think it's important!
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/17/tech-climate-change-luddites-data
@Full_marx "A 32 x 32 core memory plane storing 1024 bits (or 128 bytes) of data."
I missed adding the photo caption.
That whole module won't hold one average Tweet post, even the short old 140 chars max ones. This is 128 Bytes total.
No bloated software in those days. 😈