But I do recall, like it was yesterday, jumping with glee in 1963 when my college let me have their old IBM 1620 mainframe computer when it was replaced. I couldn't wait to get it home and start surgically autopsying my new cadaver. I methodically removed every little screw, indicator light, contact switch, transformer.
But most prized of all was the deepest darkest soul of the beast. It's "core memory." (Named for the donut-shaped graphite cores that were magnetized N/S, (or L/R, or U/D, or B/W, or yes, even the infamous 1's and 0's, all of which were untrue. Magnets are either N or S. All those other artificial dichotomies were just authors' imaginations). They stopped making core memory like this decades ago.
For days I excavated slowly, carefully, making sure not to break any part. Just in case one might someday want to reassemble this into a revived digital Frankenstein corpse. Finally, I exposed the sarcophagus that contained the sacred core memory. Those little bits that kept me awake so many nights as I tried to master the special new realm of computer language that it took to talk to them. They had been so perfectly obedient. Which was the problem.
They always did exactly what I asked. And with only a beginner's grasp of their language I often asked things of them that neither they nor I wanted, or perhaps didn't even understand.
For days I excavated slowly, carefully, making sure not to break any part. Just in case one might someday want to reassemble this into a revived digital Frankenstein corpse. Finally, I exposed the sarcophagus that contained the sacred core memory. Those little bits that kept me awake so many nights as I tried to master the special new realm of computer language that it took to talk to them. They had been so perfectly obedient. Which was the problem.
They always did exactly what I asked. And with only a beginner's grasp of their language I often asked things of them that neither they nor I wanted, or perhaps didn't even understand.
I had tried so many hundreds of times to talk in their symbols, asking them to spit back things I already knew, like the trigonometric cosine of a 60-degree angle, or the volume of a cube. But the real bonding between me and these little cores had developed when we jointly shared the intractable goal of calculating a perfect square root of a prime number, or the exact area of a circle. That took special algorithms, a kind of game plan for me to coach this little team of fella's how they would have to work together among themselves to discover something I never had known (such as the square root of 173.69, to a precision of 7 decimal places).
Sometime, later in graduate school, I mastered their language. About seven of their languages, in fact. They were so ready to go to work for a knowing master. Not just an articulate master, but one who cared to reduce their work. I spent a master's degree developing mathematical look-ahead optimization techniques for computer algorithms. Techniques that would allow a computer to arrive a conclusion sooner, with less work. One that would allow the computer to serve more people in better ways, given access to the special codes for accelerating the speed of convergence upon the end of a mathematical path. One that might help the nascent space shuttle recalculate its glide path in time to land safely.
I could articulate a complex algorithmic game plan in one of their languages, hand it to them, then go home for a bit of sleep. Maybe even take children Christine and Paul to the park to fly kites. Then come back to the computer lab the next night to see what sort of mathematical construct they had built for me (why were those early computer labs always in the...basement?)
I could articulate a complex algorithmic game plan in one of their languages, hand it to them, then go home for a bit of sleep. Maybe even take children Christine and Paul to the park to fly kites. Then come back to the computer lab the next night to see what sort of mathematical construct they had built for me (why were those early computer labs always in the...basement?)
Isn't it too bad, that today we hear people use the phrase "core dump" and they have no flinching what the heck they are referring to. How much grunting, grinding, grimacing and genius grandeur they are discounting. Or when someone says "core memory," how little do they get to appreciate that when one refers to a "core memory" it is referring to a phase of human developoment, a period of history, an journey of scientific discovery, an environment for raising kids, a transition to a new realm of mankind's peer-to-peer partnership with machine.
This morning I took this IBM 1620 Core Plane out of a special box I've kept it in for a very long time. Not a single delicate, fragile graphite core is broken. I was going to photograph it and put it on sale. But seeing it was more moving than seeing photographs and portraits of the time. One doesn't have a relationship with photographs, but with the people in them. But with this core plane, I did have a relationship. This core plane was like a demanding member of my family. It also help feed and clothe us, and it helped me develop beyond normal.
And it's still a member of our family.
Next year this will be 50 years old. I can't just sell it. I will send it to my grand children so that 50 years from now they can show it to their own grandchildren and say, this was a member of your great, great, great grandparents' family.
