[RioRico]

Back in the day, when my other programmed systems by plugging wires into cards, were memory drums for mass storage.

...programmers often took to positioning code onto the drum in such a way as to reduce the amount of time needed to find the next instruction. They did this by timing how long it would take after loading an instruction for the computer to be ready to read the next one, then placing that instruction on the drum so that it would arrive under a head just in time. This method of timing compensation is called the skip factor...

Core memory was a major improvement, if a bit less exciting. Drums and old hard disks *could* be mis-programmed to spin overly fast, like WAY too fast, resulting in the device's self-destruction. One of my ex-cow-orkers told of running a midnight computer-room shift at MIT many decades ago, leaving his desk for coffee, and returning to find disintegrated machine fragments embedded in desk, chair, cabinets, walls. Coffee saved his life! (And now I'm restricted to drinking depresso, decaf espresso. I'm doomed. But I digress.)

[Stone G.]

Got ya beat... Raise your hand if you know what CORE Memory is... This is a 1kb module from a Univac 1050 mainframe computer. It is 4 inches on a side. It took a refrigerator sized cabinet of these to provide 512 megabytes in the late 70s.

I raise my hand - I've actually seen them in a computer - they were called electronic calculator machines then - assembly facility: Lots of small cylindrical magnets with two electrical leads thorugh each to set and reset the magnetism to generate the 0's and 1's. Ah yes, those were the days (in 1966)........

[Gashog]

My 2c
If you don't print them, they're gone.

I had a visit two summers ago. An elderly woman pulled into my driveway. She had grown up in my house. I had always believed that my wifes grand parents had built this farm. She gave me a picture of her, as a child, standing in my driveway next to a model A Ford. Not a work of art...just a snap shot. I treasure it regardless.