Imagine that it is 1950 and you want to build a computer. What do you use for memory?

Magnetic drums are slow and expensive. Mercury delay lines are a little faster but are heavy, expensive, and require very precise temperature control. CRTs are cheaper but not much faster and are limited in capacity.

Nobody[1] has even heard of core, and solid state memory isn’t even a gleam in someone’s eye.

——-

[1] except the navy, and they weren’t talking.