A Brief History of Magnetic Drums

It's no secret, I'm a big fan of memory. Not only is memory crucial for the functioning of a computer, it's also plain weird. This episode we are looking at magnetic core memory; a technology that defined computing for more than two decades. We'll be talking about how it works, the impacts of ferrite, and the surprising controversy surrounding it's creation. Selected Sources: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_datamation_31792007/page/n161/mode/2up - Datamation coverage of the patent disputes http://johngustafson.net/pubs/pub57/ABCPaper.htm - Recreation of ABC https://amhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0196_wang701029.pdf - Wang Oral History http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/core.html - Diagrams and photos of magnetic cores