Experimental magnetic drum store, c 1950.

Magnetic drum stores were used as memory devices for storing information in computers. This experimental drum store was first devised by Andrew Donald Booth in London as a memory device. Information is stored on a magnetisable strip on the drum which is rotated by a motor. Digital information is stored as a binary magnetic pattern. Information can be written to and read from the drum. Fully engineered drum stores were widely used in production computers during the 1950s and 1960s.