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Tube❄️Time

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

16 Nov 2023 at 1:53 | Open on mastodon.social
18 comments
Tube❄️Time

found a pic of a CDC6600 core plane and this looks like a match. 1024 cores apparently.
16 Nov 2023 at 1:55 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube❄️Time
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.

16 Nov 2023 at 2:01 | Open on aus.social
Tube❄️Time

check out that cordwood construction. really sucks if a part dies in the middle of the board
16 Nov 2023 at 2:04 | Open on mastodon.social
DELETED

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

16 Nov 2023 at 2:35 | Open on mastodon.social
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.
16 Nov 2023 at 3:01 | Open on hachyderm.io
Григорий Клюшников

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

16 Nov 2023 at 6:13
Erik van Zijst

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

16 Nov 2023 at 6:58 | Open on mas.to
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?

16 Nov 2023 at 7:37 | Open on spacey.space
Emily Velasco

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

16 Nov 2023 at 2:16 | Open on social.afront.org
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*"

16 Nov 2023 at 2:22 | Open on mastodon.social
DELETED
myrmepropagandist
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* ? 🙂

16 Nov 2023 at 2:02 | Open on noc.social
Aaron Sawdey, Ph.D.

@tubetime Ooh look what I found. I read this years ago because of course the U of MN library has a copy. But now there’s a pdf available:

archive.computerhistory.org/re

16 Nov 2023 at 4:34 | Open on fosstodon.org
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
16 Nov 2023 at 7:56 | Open on piaille.fr
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.

16 Nov 2023 at 2:01 | Open on mastodon.social
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