The Weavers: Memory and the Moon

In 1965, engineers were building a computer to fly men to the moon. It had to survive a rocket launch and the vacuum of space. It could not be erased by a power failure, a hard landing, or anything short of physical destruction. They needed to make the code permanent. They needed to weave it. In this episode Hilda Carpenter - MIT technician who assembled the first magnetic-core memory plane The Raytheon weavers - Textile workers and watchmakers recruited to encode Apollo's computer The Fairchild Semiconductor plant - Where Navajo women built integrated circuits so men could walk on the moon Episode Music Jay Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 "Those 2 Saints" "Evening Drum" "No History Should Be Silenced" "Behind the Mask" Additional Reading CuriousMarc. (2019). Core memory explained and demonstrated [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/AwsInQLmjXc Nakamura, L. (2014). Indigenous circuits. Computer History Museum. https://computerhistory.org/blog/indigenous-circuits/ Rankin, J. L. (2022, February 18). Core memory weavers and Navajo women made the Apollo missions possible. Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/core-memory-weavers-navajo-apollo-raytheon-computer-nasa Shirriff, K. (2019). Software woven into wire. Ken Shirriff's Blog. https://www.righto.com/2019/07/software-woven-into-wire-core-rope-and.html Stark, L. (2018). Hilda wove all those wires [Zine]. https://www.liza-stark.com/projects/zines/hilda.html Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. (2017). "Hear my voice" artist profile: D.Y. Begay [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9wmz5rf1NU -- Support the show 💚 This show is independently produced. You can support the show by joining the show's Patreon. Patreon members get access to "Found in the Margins" bonus episodes and help make the show possible. You can also donate via Buy Me a Coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to sign up to receive Notes from the Machine with each episode.