"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 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
@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.