Storage devices exhibit ➔ Ferranti Magnetic Drum

physical object

Identifier
2010.1.27
Description
Ferranti Magnetic Drum, circa 1961, used for secondary storage with a capacity of 16,000 words. Magnetic drum technology was a precursor to the magnetic hard drive; both used used a spinning magnetic surface that could be read or written to by sets of fixed read/write heads.

In the photo, you can't see the drum on the interior, but you can see the read/write heads on the long axis of the drum cylinder and which are connected to the thick white cables running around the base.

Related Term
Magnetic Drums (describes)
External links
Wikipedia
Techopedia
Related people
Systems Design Undergraduate Lab (was donor of)
Evan Wolfe (is documentarian of)