[TUHS] core

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sat, 16 Jun 2018, Doug McIlroy wrote:

>> jay forrester first described an invention called core memory in a lab 
>> notebook 69 years ago today.
>
> Core memory wiped out competing technologies (Williams tube [...]

Ah, the Williams tube.  Was that not the one where women clerks (they 
weren't called programmers) wearing nylon stockings were not allowed 
anywhere near them, because of the static zaps thus generated?  Or was 
that yet another urban myth that appears to be polluting my history file?

How said women were determined to be wearing nylons and thus banned, well. 
I have no idea...  Hell, even a popular computer weekly in the 80s used to 
joke that "software" was a female computer programmer; I'm sure that Rear 
Admiral Grace Hopper (USN retd, decd) would've had a few words to say 
about that sexism...

-- Dave