Larry's Blog

WATER ON STONE

can’t feel the rain on their face any more
can’t go to war
I pass the stones
one by one in the storm

and when the rain has stoppped
there’s no need to warm
in the sun
what’s done is done

but the rows are alive
with memories. This one
traveled here, this one there
one breathed his last
in Normandy air

whether it’s spring, or roses
doesn’t mean a thing
none of them is alone
only me, watching water
on the face of a stone

Larry Keegan

STEEPLES

it’s Saturday night
and all is well
nobody’s going to heaven
and nobody’s going to hell

there’s road rage on the highway
600 waiting on death row
for some the spring is coming
for others - I don’t know

there’s a war that’s killed ten thousand
it started because no one said no
some hope it will turn out well
there were lies, and a command to go

it’s Saturday - people head to church
on Sunday they will say their prayers
steeples make good cell phone antennas
millions bow their heads
but there may be no one upstairs

Larry Keegan

PARKWAY QUEEN

she’s a ninety pound beauty
in a two ton S-U-V

I’ve got to teach her
what the accelerator’s for
she don’t know how to spell it
she don’t know how to use it
honey - it’s a gas pedal!
you got to push it to the floor

just a ninety pound beauty
in a two ton S-U-V

it’s only a quart of milk
she’s goin’ to the store
so what’s that 300 horsepower for?
sittin’ twelve feet above the road
like riding a tank
in Afghanistan
but she can do it
if anybody can

she’s a ninety pound beauty
in a two ton S-U-V

Larry Keegan

FERROMAGNETIC CORE MEMORY

Here is a picture of setup for experimenting with Ferromagnetic Core Memory.

On the left you will see a composition electronic card containing ferrite cores
which have been cemented right in the card. I have removed all the original wires from it. The next circuit to the right of it is a latching circuit with an LED which is designed to latch a signal coming in on the sense wire. There is other circuitry for the WRITE signal which magnetizes the core in one or the other polarity.

My purpose in doing these experiments is not for any practical reason such as using the core memory for data storage. Computer memory storage is already very much available today. But I wish to implement all the steps that are used in reading and writing this kind of memory. I have already a long list of terms and phenomena that are connected with magnetism in general, and ferrite cores in particular.

Hysteresis loop, domains, permeability, saturation, flux density, residual magnetism. A few years back, I was excited to learn that magnetism lies within the electromagnetic force, and actually stems from the spin of electrons in atoms, in very small areas called domains. In certain materials, the electrons can be forced to have the same spin, and this produces the magnetic force.

I am really excited in this new study and want to learn all about it. I might mention here coincident current, which is used to write to a particular core in a memory, by sending part of magnetizing current on one wire and part of it on another. Only where the 2 currents cross, is the threshold reached which is adequate to flip the core to the desired polarity.

Any way, there will be more!