Researcher builds bizarre 128-byte USB drive the size of a dinner plate using ancient pre-semiconductor magnetic core memory technology — data disappears once it is read, requiring special handling

A researcher has created a unique USB drive the size of a dinner plate with only 128 bytes of data capacity using ancient Magnetic Core Memory technology. The data stored on the drive is non-volatile but gets erased during the read process, necessitating special handling. Despite its impracticality, the drive combines old memory tech with modern components like a Raspberry Pi Pico for USB functionality. Magnetic Core Memory, used before semiconductor DRAM, stored data on ferric rings and was non-volatile but had drawbacks like low density and data erasure upon reading.