M Gonzalez-Noda

Following Threads

At Raytheon the core rope for the Apollo Guidance Computer was wired by women recruited out of the textile and watchmaking trades.

Cores were threaded by hand. A worker passes wire through a plane on its jig, one ring at a time, spools at her elbow.
Detail of the weave. Each ferrite ring holds one bit, magnetised one way or the other by the currents in the wires crossing through it.
Mullard type AW 3968, serial no. 10103. A four tier core store of the kind fitted to the Modular One computer, around 1970.
The store seen edge on, plane stacked on plane, bussed out to the coloured wiring at top and bottom.
One plane, complete in its frame: sixteen woven blocks held between the drive lines.