CLASSICCMP digest 241

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Fri Nov 21 18:56:30 1997

> Your main problem is not the logic, it is the memory. There is no old
> memory that is anywhere near as easy to use as, say, SRAM. Your major
> choices are core, magnetic drum/disk, or delay line. Core is going to be
> a lot of work. Drum or disk will require expertise in mechanical
> fabrication but is pretty attractive otherwise. Acoustic delay line (the
> only kind with reasonable capacity) may be best but will require some
> research and experimentation. I would recommend magnetostrictive wire
> acoustic delay line memory if you can figure out how to build it and
> don't mind having a very small memory.

I would think a storage tube idea would be fairly easy (?!) to do, as it
would not require any odd materials. The hardest thing to find might be a
correct lense for the pickup tube. As mentioned before, a common CRT would
probably work just fine. The electronics to drive the two tubes would not
be bad at all - line counting circuits have been in use for many years,
and they can be suprisingly simple (just do not think binary!). The
drawback is that the resulting system would have such a small capacity for
all of the bulk (one of the reasons for the downfall of the storage tube
for computers).

That, or use a radar pointed at the moon for one hell of a delay line...

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Fri Nov 21 1997 - 18:56:30 GMT