Remembering Magnetic Memories and the Apollo AGC

As seen on Curious Marc, where some real AGC core rope ROMs are read:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hckwxq8rnr0

They even have to work around some design mistakes made in the modules in order to read them correctly. Not many living people know more about the AGC than those guys (especially Mike Stewart).

I find it remarkable that magnetic core memory was used in (semi-)modern fighter aircraft. Their systems have to pass extreme vibration testing, and you would think that core memory would be very susceptible to vibration.

Core memory was in use a lot longer than people think. Some fighters being produced as recently as the 1980s still used it.

According to http://madrona.ca/e/coremem/index.html

> I have seen it [core memory] in service as recently as 2004 in a telephony control application

Another magnetic memory system is the Nixdorf rod cell memory form the Nixdorf 820.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kiGZrSB9uo8&pp=ygUOTml4ZG9yZiB...

https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/...