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The Joker Behind the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory Chip Hoax
New submitter st1lett0 writes: Now and in years past, electronic engineers and hobbyists alike have enjoyed the classic 1972 April Fool's joke by Signetics of the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory chip. Now it seems that the previously anonymous practical joker has identified himself and stepped forward with new information to correct and complete the story.
These days used for cheap knock-off memory sticks.
From TFA:
I had always admired an EIMAC high powered vacuum tube spoof data sheet put out by Eitel-McCullough,Inc. I saw it when I was a teen Ham Operator and must have memorized it. That was in the late 1940â(TM)s.
So far I havenâ(TM)t relocated a copy of the EIMAC spoof data sheet. You need it to see the relevance. It pictured a melted EIMAC power tube and offered humorous specifications. If you know where there is a copy, let me know ...
Anyone here got a copy of the EIMAC Spoof Data Sheet?
Wanna share with us?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It may make you think you feel better but truth is you don't, and you are out a penny.
Like Carlin said, everything dies. Everything? Everything.
I've been waiting to find out about this one. Waiting a long time.
Jeez, I know we've all got super-fast broadband and the like, but is there really any good reason to have a 31 megapixel background image?
Remember, every byte transmitted hastens the heat death of the universe!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I just knew that the Jocker was behind all this! It's about time we locked him back in Arkham and threw away the key!
Oh, wait...
A memory chip that can only be written to could be quite secure. And before you laugh obviously there would have to be another way to retrieve the data - perhaps plugging it into a special board with completely different voltages or even taking the lid off - that the machine its sitting in would be able to do. I could see a use for this sort of thing in espionage. Store the data on this chip and send it off but if its intercepted the enemy can't figure out how to get the data out of it since any read operation they try simply fails.
Remember when electrical engineering in the West was still a viable career choice? With some semblance of social worth, stability and employer-employee respect?
Can you imagine this kind of joke happening today?
1) You think the kind of student that studies EE these days is actually interested in electronics and could appreciate the joke?
2) That an employer/HR dep't would tolerate these kinds of hijinks?
Just seems electrical engineering is just a gigantic faceless operation now, more of a nuisance than the central reason for a company.
They are easily recognised by the colour code "three black bands on a black background".
They are normally used to supply the "magic smoke" required by electronic systems to operate at full power, but I believe there are other uses.
I had a data sheet for a Motorola WOM as well - I believe from about the same date.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
for my backups. Backup speed increases significantly and only slightly reduces the likelihood that I will be able to restore the data.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I invented the hoax "Free to Play".
There was a time when some of Intel's EEPROMs (1702As, IIRC, but, maybe, 2048s) were write/read-maybe. Seems some materials guy got a really good deal on some clay to make the ceramic carrier. Only problem was that the clay was radioactive enough for the emissions to change the stored data. Back in those days (1702s were only 256 BYTES), the storage cells weren't all that robust, so enough decay particles hitting the cells could flip them.
Think THAT didn't take a while to track down?
Bumming...I invented the Write Only Drive while at college. Now, it looks like I infringed on the Patent. Mine, however, used the Pauli-Exclusion and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principles to store information on each atom. Problem was, we hadn't figured out how to get the data back out (it was just a s SCSI cable going into a black box. I think we just needed Heisenberg Compensators.
Even though we published our "Announcement" it during our April's Fools edition of our Newsletter, we received one call from a company wanting to commercially build it. We had to explain it was a joke.
Most people think of WORM memory when they read this stuff.
I'm autistic, and I totally understand why people get confused about this. If you want to be really rigorous in how you talk, that's fine, but realize that not everyone is going to be that way.
I used to get pissed that people call the United States a democracy, since that word isn't in any of the major documents. Then I took the stick out of my ass.
Not trying to insult anyone, just saying.
There is a second story on that site. He wrote the spec and they ignored him on wikipedia. He can even produce the original draft copies. They told him to pound sand and 'just go make a blog about it'.
That is sad.
Unlike WOM, write-only languages are all too real.
I can't even read my own PERL scripts if they are more than a week old.
Did Batman catch him?
Twinstiq, game news
I hear that next year they are coming out with an Erasable Write Only Memory so you can re-use it when you run out of memory.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I once built a dark emitting diode, the first single-terminal semiconductor device.
I needed to block a photodiode to test a circuit, so I cut a small piece of heat shrink tubing to fit over a TO-39 package, notched out for the tab on the package, shrunk the top, plugged it with a blob of solder, and stuck in a single wire.
Umm, and what exactly is the distinction between feeling better and *thinking* you feel better? We are after all talking about a totally subjective experience, and virtually all of the research on the subject says that virtually nothing objectively measurable has any lasting impact on your feelings* - it's all down to self-imposed changes in attitude and perception.
*Okay, so theres a fair number of psychoactive drugs that can have a effect while taken regularly - but that's probably not any better of an idea just because you have a prescription, and heaven help you if you stop.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There were other component hoaxes.
BD-1 Battery Discharger, also had a product spec printed. Marketing actually heard from a customer who wanted samples.
To compliment the Light Emitting Diode (LED), a company offered the Dark Emitting Diode (DED).
Hard to top the WOM though. I actually used that term in a meeting involving computers. Reaction was deer in the headlights from the IT folks. Had to quickly clue them in.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
How do you think /dev/null is implemented?
/dev/null anyone?
The new apple iphone A13 processor will have 1GB of EWOM as well as a patented solid state turboencabulator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Nice :-)
length: 1.076 cubits
diameter: 0.643 cubit
net weight: 0.069 stone
shipping weight: not shippable
I have a copy of the original Signetics April Fool Joke adv for the "Write-only Memory Chip". I usually post a printout of it on my office wall. I especially like the "drain" in the lower right corner of the schematic! :-)
The Darkness Emitting Arsenide Diode (DEAD).
The Electro-Voice Rearaxial Softspeaker from about 1966 is a real hoot.
Some microwave components company put out a "Our Company" pamphlet that was a real knee-slapper. It had the usual corporate description of operations with 1920's era photographs. "Our retirement plan...." a graveyard.
So, to squeeze all the memory in 16 bits of address line, certain areas were overlays. In particular, there was an overlay of video memory that overlapped app memory space. How did they work this out? Once your program was running and you mapped the additional memory in, any writes from user code went to the memory (no self modifying code) and any reads came from the video rasterizer.
From the perspective of your program, write only memory.
Those others are great fun. 8-)
But the 25120 WOM chip was the only one I know of that was in the actual company catalog, has an actual copyright and the data sheet could be ordered from the company!
And it actually created "buzz" and sales for the company (for other chips).
One guy I knew, insisted for years that it was real... 8-P