THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PHOTOMEMORY

INDEXING METHODS FOR A STORE OF PHOTOMEMORY TYPE WERE EXPLORED, AND BASIC PLANNING FOR EXPERIMENTAL READING AND WRITING HARDWARE WAS PERFORMED. A versatile test bed incorporating a commercial photographic enlarger was assembled. Successful reading and writing experiments were carried out. A demonstration reader capable of simple logical operations were developed. Writing of simple patterns with the apparatus wasACHIEVED. A complete small-scale reader designated the computer input device was designed, built, and tested. The investigation revealed that the concept is adaptable to practical equipment. Photocells are the limiting items in a reader design, and light sources and recording media the most significant in writing. The degree to which potential performance is realized depends on the uniformity of light signals during scanning, and the effectiveness of distortion correction and alignment techniques. (Author)