Book: Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers

Reason Magazine has a nice review of a book having images from various vintage computers. It is not online yet. Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers is from Chronicle Books up in San Francisco. Perhaps their proximity to Silicon Valley accounts for the care and beauty of the images in the book. One that caught by eye was for the mercury filled acoustic delay line memory module from the UNIVAC I computer, pictured below. There is a nice write-up of this particular memory here at the IEEE. In addition there is an online museum with a page about core memory here. Another great site with a series of pages about memory is here. I don’t know if they have pictures of any analog computers in the book, I will let you know.

This acoustic delay-line memory was in the UNIVAC I, back in the 1950s. Courtesy Chronicle Books.