On 6/25/2011 6:28, Jim Holsenback wrote:
> I worked on a piece of avionics gear that was used to identify submarine
> acoustic signatures ... it was loaded with mag core memory

I knew someone who worked on modern military helicopters, at least some of 
which also have mag core memory.  The thing is, it's non-volatile. You can 
lose power without wiping out your mission or having to reboot or whatever.

When I was in college, I was working on a big assembly program on a 
mainframe. 20 minutes into a 30 minute compile, all the lights go out. I 
think "Well, so much for getting this done before lunch."  Three minutes 
later, the lights come back on, I start getting messages on the terminal 
about disks being inaccessible, and then ten minutes later I get "compile 
completed."  So, yeah, there was enough voltage in the capacitors to save 
the registers out to memory when the power-fail interrupt came along.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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