A High-Speed Barrier Grid Store

The last two decades have seen a phenomenal growth in the field of digital data handling systems of large capacity. Prior to 10-40 the telephone central office contained the only large-scale systems to be found. Since that time the number of special and general-purpose computers has mushroomed and, at the same time, the demands on special data handling devices for such systems have become more severe. One of the more thorny problems has been that of providing adequate storage for the large amounts of information received and generated by the systems. Early systems effectively used electromechanical relays for information storage, but the demands for speed and economy have forced the system designer to go far afield in his search for satisfactory memory devices. While many devices have been developed for memory purposes, each particular system has requirements which limit the choice to relatively few of them. Those systems having most severe choice limitations required a random access memory with very high-speed reading and writing. Prior to 1950 the choice was limited to some form of electrostatic storage tube. With the introduction of magnetic core storage the field was widened. Because of the discrete nature of its storage unit and the convenience for individual experimentation, the core became the focus of considerably more attention in recent years. In contrast, the 1105