SKU: 77.

Offered for sale
unified magnetostrictive delay line - MLZU-650.
The maximum number of cycles is 650.
The maximum operating frequency is 300 kHz.
Power - minus 12 V.
Delay time - 2.2 m/sec.
The memory was manufactured at the Ivano-Frankivsk Instrument-Making Plant.
Production date: 1974Dimensions (approx.): 7" x 6" x 1"
Weight: (approx.):10 ozMagnetostrictive delay lines
A later version of the delay line used metal wires as the storage medium. Transducers were built by applying the magnetostrictive effect; small pieces of a magnetostrictive material, typically nickel, were attached to either side of the end of the wire, inside an electromagnet. When bits from the computer entered the magnets the nickel would contract or expand (based on the polarity) and twist the end of the wire. The resulting torsional wave would then move down the wire just. In most cases the entire wire was made of the same material.
The torsional waves are considerably more resistant to problems caused by mechanical imperfections, so much so that the wires could be wound into a loose coil and pinned to a board. Due to their ability to be coiled, the wire-based systems could be built as "long" as needed, and tended to hold considerably more data per unit; 1k units were typical on a board only 1 foot square. Of course this also meant that the time needed to find a particular bit was somewhat longer as it traveled through the wire, and access times on the order of 500 microseconds were typical.
Delay line memory was far less expensive and far more reliable per bit than flip-flops made from tubes, and yet far faster than a latching relay. It was used right into the late 1960s, notably on commercial machines like the LEO I, Highgate Wood Telephone Exchange, various Ferranti machines,