Core rope memory

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Rope memory from the Apollo Guidance Computer

Photo detail of a 16Kb rope core memory board from a 1974 computer

Core rope memory test sample from the Apollo program

Core rope memory is a form of read-only memory (ROM) for computers. It was used in the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I) and the UNIVAC II, developed by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in the 1950s, as it was a popular technology for program and data storage in that era. It was later used in the 1960s by early NASA Mars space probes and then in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC),^[1] which was built by Raytheon.

The software for the AGC was written by programmers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Instrumentation Lab, and was woven into core rope memory by female workers in factories.^[2] Some programmers nicknamed the finished product LOL memory, for Little Old Lady memory.^[3]