Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
I remember speculation that HP might conceivably introduce a version of the 55 which used core memory so it could retain its programs across power-offs, but of course core was already a dead-ended technology at that point.
As Arthur C. Clarke put it, man never stops using a tool. Once you invent something it stays in use more or less forever, coming back to life in different reincarnations. See:
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/2219411
"IBM, Infineon Develop Better Magnetic Memory By Michael Singer
What if you could turn computers on and off as quickly as a light switch without having to wait for software to "boot up"? Sound like science fiction?"
No, it sounds like 1962, or the core-memory central office telephone switches that were still being installed in the late 1970s.
I described some amusing examples of reinvention in this essay:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtransistora.pdf
See the photo of the airplane that was parked outside my office a few years ago. Caption:
A Piaggio P180 Avanti. The company claims, "The Avanti was developed by discarding conventional aeronautical thinking!" - http://www.piaggioamerica.com/, but ironically this design is reminiscent of history�s first airplanes, the 1903 - 1909 Wright Flyers, with a canard wing forward and twin [counterrotating] pusher propellers mounted on the wings.
And this fascinating quote from Eddy & Potter:
". . . the commercial development of the turbine passed through some paradoxical stages before arriving at the present big jet era. Contrary to one standard illusion, modern technology does not advance with breathtaking speed along a predictable linear track. Progress goes hesitantly much of the time, some�times encountering long fallow periods and often doubling back unpredictably upon its path."
- Jed
