Editing Drum memory (section)

{{short description|Magnetic data storage device}}
{{Redirect|Drum storage|the electronic musical instrument|drum machine}}
{{Memory types}}
[[Image:Pamiec bebnowa 1.jpg|thumb|Drum memory of a Polish {{illm|ZAM-41|pl}} computer]]
[[File:BESKmemories.jpg|thumb|Drum memory from the [[BESK]] computer, Sweden's first binary computer, which made its debut in 1953]]

'''Drum memory''' was a magnetic [[data storage device]] invented by [[Gustav Tauschek]] in 1932 in [[Austria]].<ref>[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US2080100.pdf US Patent 2,080,100] Gustav Tauschek, Priority date August 2, 1932, subsequent filed as 
[https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/depatisnet?action=bibdat&docid=DE000000643803A German Patent DE643803],  "Elektromagnetischer Speicher für Zahlen und andere Angaben, besonders für Buchführungseinrichtungen" (Electromagnetic memory for numbers and other information, especially for accounting institutions)</ref><ref name="Tauschek">{{cite web|url=http://cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?id=222|title=Magnetic drum|work=Virtual Exhibitions in Informatics|editor=Universität Klagenfurt|access-date=2011-08-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220414065240/http://cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?id=222 |archive-date=14 April 2022}}</ref>  Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as [[computer memory]].

Many early computers, called drum computers or drum machines, used drum memory as the main working memory of the computer.<ref>Datamation, September 1967, p.25, "For Bendix and Ramo-Wooldridge, the G-20 and RW-400 were parallel core machines rather than serial drum machines of the type already in their product lines."</ref>  Some drums were also used as [[Auxiliary memory|secondary storage]] as for example various [[IBM_drum_storage|IBM drum storage drives]] and the [[UNIVAC FASTRAND]] series of drums.

Drums were displaced as primary computer memory by magnetic [[core memory]], which offered a better balance of size, speed, cost, reliability and potential for further improvements.<ref>{{cite book |last= Matick|first=Richard |date=1977 |title=Computer Storage Systems & Technology |publisher=Wiley |page= 15}}</ref>  Drums were then replaced by [[hard disk drive]]s for [[secondary storage]], which were both less expensive and offered denser storage. The manufacturing of drums ceased in the 1970s.