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25 comments
Tube❄️Time

it's hard to take apart. took out all the screws and it won't come apart

Tube❄️Time

the pcbs are stacked with components soldered in between them, cordwood style.

Tube❄️Time

I want to look at the individual cores but this thing is *soldered together* so if I want to get inside, I'll need to desolder like 63746875 wired connections. should I even try?

Emily Velasco

@tubetime you know that you should. It's the only thing to do

Tube❄️Time

this is apparently out of a CDC6600 supercomputer but I haven't verified that yet

Tube❄️Time

found a pic of a CDC6600 core plane and this looks like a match. 1024 cores apparently.

Briala

@tubetime The idea of how core memory works is so wild. That module is one of the best examples of how compute manufacturers scaled up tech so so far, until it got replaced by something very different. In this, case with silicon chips.

Tube❄️Time

check out that cordwood construction. really sucks if a part dies in the middle of the board

DELETED

@tubetime takes a really fiddly finagler to get these things kept up. I can respect a repair person like that.

Dave Fischer

@tubetime Yeah, the only circuits I've ever seen that look like that are Seymour's. (If it's from a CDC-6600, the transistors should all be CDC-nnn named, because he had to special order them because he wanted silicon instead of germanium.)

Closeup side view of a module from a CDC-6600 supercomputer, 1964.
Григорий Клюшников

Tube🍂Time, but that's the only way they could pack components as densely at the time, isn't it?

Erik van Zijst

@tubetime the symmetry of the components and placement though. This was designed and assembled with passion.

Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

@tubetime
Does that mean if a part dies in the middle of the board, you have to desolder 63746875 components to replace the part?

Emily Velasco

@tubetime what are you saying that suggests it's been taken apart?

Tube❄️Time

@MLE_online oh not this specific module, just in general. "some other folks have taken apart other examples, so the internals are *known*"

Thomas Guyot-Sionnest

@tubetime Good ol' ferrite core memory.

Ever wondered why when we want to debug a crashing program we take a *core dump* ? 🙂

Laurent FRANCOISE

@tubetime I bought one some time ago and indeed it was sold as a CDC computer part

A core memory, similar to the one pictured in the previous toot
Michael Dwyer

@tubetime
I was going to say that it *looks* like a CDC part. They had a bunch of modules at the Living Computer Museum. They also had modern replacements. I don't recall the details but it was something like "this brick is 2k of memory" and the replacement was an expanse of naked PCB with, like, two chips on it.

The LCM is sort of closed, but I think the CDC is still running and being cared for. Should I look for a contact for you?

livingcomputers.org/Computer-C

@tubetime
I was going to say that it *looks* like a CDC part. They had a bunch of modules at the Living Computer Museum. They also had modern replacements. I don't recall the details but it was something like "this brick is 2k of memory" and the replacement was an expanse of naked PCB with, like, two chips on it.

DELETED

@tubetime a demonstration to keep the art allive is praxis

Benjohn

@tubetime would a tiny inspection camera help? Could even feed the video in to a 3d model builder.

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