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15. 1961_08_31_ELECTRICAL DESIGN NEWS (EDN), 1961 August 31

 File — Box: 2
Identifier: Box 2

Scope and Contents

EDN was another popular magazine subscribed to by electronic/logic designers, such as myself, back in the early 1960's. Refer to pages #72 & 73 for my EDN Packaging Idea article, "Hinged Connector Plate Adds Flexibility to Card Files", which includes four photos of the MRC module being described. Original Copy is provided. The so-called 'hinged plate' was a rather trivial design point, but I used this means to get the article published - replete with the photos - to 'show off' a complex MRC design module incorporated into the early 1960 's innovative OMR DOCUTRAN system designed for MRC's important customer, Science Research Associates, Chicago, Illinois. The module, as shown, contains nearly 50 printed-circuit cards, each containing numerous transistors and related components - all of this support circuitry necessary to drive the 960-bit core-memory module shown in the photograph! A single tiny integrated-circuit chip today (or portion thereof!) could readily handle all of the above functions at thousands of clock rates faster, and with orders of magnitude greater storage. Thus, the 'golden age' of electronics - as heralded in the early 1960's - was not quite as 'golden' as we young engineers believed at the time. Yet, it was an exciting time to be a 'cutting edge' design engineer, leaving vacuum tube circuits in the dust, or only for older engineers to persist in using

Dates

  • Creation: 1961 August 31

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Extent

From the Collection: 14.50 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Repository Details

Part of the University of Iowa Archives Repository

Contact:
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