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Tiny ferrite rings threaded on wire grids stored magnetic bits non-volatilesly. The figure is taken from Computer History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

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Magnetic core memory served as main RAM for computers from the 1950s to 1970s

Tiny ferrite rings threaded on wire grids stored magnetic bits non-volatilesly

Invented independently by An Wang and Jay Forrester in the late 1940s, magnetic core memory used tiny ferrite ceramic rings woven onto copper wire matrices. Magnetising each core clockwise or anticlockwise stored binary ones or zeros. Core memory provided fast random-access memory that retained data even when system power was turned off.

Magnetic-core memory, at angle — Bubba73 (Jud McCranie) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · licence · source

Where this comes from

Computer History Museum

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Tags: memory, core-memory, hardware

Magnetic core memory served as main RAM for computers from the 1950s to 1970s: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Tiny ferrite rings threaded on wire grids stored magnetic bits non-volatilesly. The figure is taken from Computer History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.