What is a magnetic drum?
Two different types of devices are referred to as magnetic drums. One type is a device for storing data used on the first computers, also known as drum memory. The second is the magnetic separator of the drum, the tool used in the recycling industry to separate metals from other materials.
The magnetic drum used for computer memory was invented in 1932. It was the main working memory in most computers in the 1950s and sixties. Core memory, the predecessor of random access memory (RAM), gradually replaced the drum memory as a primary memory, although the magnetic drums were used for a while as a secondary storage.
In the computer industry, the magnetic drum consisted of a hollow metal cylinder covered with magnetizable material. Read and write the heads of the recorded data on the drum when rotated by emitting electromagnetic pulses to magnetize minor stains to record the binary value of zero or one. The same heads could "read" recorded magic data magicUnit stains. The drum surface was divided into traces and industries so that users can indicate where the information should be stored and avoid writing previous data.
Compared to more modern storage methods, magnetic drums could store a very small amount of data. The drum, which had 4 inches (about 10 cm) in diameter and 8 inches (about 20 cm), could hold about 500 bits. There are eight bits in the byte, the basic unit of digital information, so the drum could hold about 62 bytes. Most computer memory at the beginning of the 21st century is measured in gigabytes, unit 10^6 bytes. The drum storage was much smaller than its modern counterparts, but it was a standard type of memory for early computer.
In the recycling industry, the magnetic separator of the drum can be used to sort materials. Recycled materials are supplied with a slip at the top or bottom of the drum. Metal pieces hold the drum while the other, noMagnetic materials fall out of the drum. The drums are designed so that one side is constantly magnetized, while the other is not; When the metal pieces get non -magnetized to the side, they fall off to a place other than other materials.
magnetic drum separators consist of a rotating magnetic cylinder that can capture the metal passing. They can use electromagnetic circuits to attract metal pieces; magnetic fields; or the materials of rare soils that are a group of magnetic metals. The magnetic separators of the drum come in different sizes to suit different volumes of materials.