[Elecraft] OT: High school drafting class, ~1975

[Tom Azlin W7SUA]

Have a slice of a core memory module here. ... somewhere.

Of course took drafting and electronics in high school as well as wood shop.

First computer I used was an IBM 1130. Learned how to build a machine 
language initial boot card where the 12 hole positions in a column could 
give me 80 short instructions from which I could build a few 16 bit 
instructions and yank in the remainder of the cards in the stack. And 
program by hand with the front panel switches. But also rewrote the 
keyboard and rotate/tilt code for the Selectric printer as interrupt 
driven.

Much easier these days.

73, tom w7sua

On 4/26/2021 2:33 PM, Mark Musick wrote:
> OK, I can't resist any longer either.
> I waited and bought the HP-45 when it came out. It had hyperbolic functions as well as polar to rectangular conversion functions. Being a EE the polar to rectangular conversion is why I bought it. It made life much easier. Of course my dad had a fit when he found out what I paid for it.
> 
> Now to the computers, how many of you youngsters out there remember core memory? For you really young folks there was no RAM. 0s and 1s were stored on toroidal cores on a back plane.
> IN 1978, when I started at Public Service Company of Indiana (PSI), the local electric utility, we were using two 16 bit MODCOMP minicomputers. Each minicomputer had 64K of core memory for the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Each machine had a tape drive and two 360k disk drives. We thought we were downtown. The SCADA system was used to control and monitor the HV transmission system. 69kV - 765kV.
> 
> 73,
> Mark, WB9CIF