How scarce (valuable) is core for the PDP-8?

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:30 1999

At 06:50 AM 4/22/99 -0000, Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com> wrote:
>
>Why is hooking up a small core memory to PCI any more of a joke than building
>it in 1999 in general? As I recall, you proposed making about 256 bytes.
>It's not like you're going to be able to run an operating system out of it
>on *any* machine, modern or classic.

You'd think there would've been more motivation to remove the
battery-backed nature of the CMOS RAM in today's PCs, and that
core-like replacements would make more sense in situations
where (for example) it would be difficult to replace the coin cell
or AA-pack or whatever every 12-18 months. So many failures
of PCs (and delightful amounts of "service" fees to repair them)
involve failure of the battery for the CMOS RAM.

Of course, this can lead to the discussion of real-time clock
chips with enclosed batteries with a finite lifetime...

At 08:41 AM 4/22/99 -0400, allisonp_at_world.std.com wrote:
>
>Because what would the point be for a pc with core and an access time of
>1000 to 10,000ns per byte/word?

That's hard disk territory, right? :-)

- John
Received on Thu Apr 22 1999 - 10:22:30 BST