The Ware for May 2026 is shown below.
This month’s ware is on a theme similar to last month’s but about…50 years older. Lots of things change over the years, but the geometric organization of an array never goes out of style. On the other hand, I increasingly miss things that were designed for repair, containing self-documenting features like this one.
Huge thanks again to FETguy and Renew Computers in San Rafael, CA for contributing this gem!
19 9-bit (plus 1 bit spare) words of core memory. With all the labels, I guess it’s from a DIY kit, or maybe a college course.
Given the use of transistors in TO-92 package, core memory likely was already “retro” by the time this ware was designed.
According to Wikipedia, the era of core memory was 1955 to 1975, and the TO-92 package was introduced in 1966. So my guess about this being a “retro” kit is probably wrong.
In the late 1980s I worked for a UK computer company that was contracted to design and build new 64K Core Stores for the British military (probably K-bits and not K-Bytes, but I might be wrong). Magnetic cores are immune to EMP, so they were still desirable for some specialized applications despite their limited capacity. The support circuitry was all ICs instead of discrete components and the cores were smaller and packed closer together so they looked nothing like these photos, but 1975 definitely wasn’t the end of core memory.
Could this be the backup memory for a 19 digit 9 segment LED display used as a status/debug output in some mainframe or measurement device?