A blast from the past

Skeeter · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:02

Stuff like this just makes you think how far we've come in 50 years....

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/storage.asp

According to that my computer hard drives (640GB's in total) would have weighed 131,072 tons! and been the size of 262,144 fridges!

My pen drive would be 51.2 tons and its only 256MB!

Danger Phoenix · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:09

I did my dissertation last year on The History of Memory Storage Devices and it was really interesting as I was examining these hard disks and the original floppy disks

Skeeter · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:19

Floppy disks that were actually floppy! Only just remember them in BBC computers at school

malfunkshun · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:32

Skeeter said:
Floppy disks that were actually floppy! Only just remember them in BBC computers at school

The disks themselves were always floppy, but the square cover the came in werent.

Aod · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:36

Skeeter said:
Floppy disks that were actually floppy! Only just remember them in BBC computers at school

the big ones were! :eek:

Angilion · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:50

Paper tape was still in use when I started. More from nostalgia than anything else, but the kit still worked. Hard disk drives the size of a 21" CRT monitor, in a controlled environment computing room. I'm almost sure I remember 8 inch floppies, too. I still have a 5.25" FDD and some discs. 160KB per disc, if I recall correctly.

SpicyDuck · 11 Dec 2007 at 00:32

I very very briefly remember those 5.25" FDDs during my first years of Primary School - it must've been during the time they pretty much died - all I remember after that were the ones we have (had?) now.

It is quite amazing actually - the progress we've made - and it annoys me when people complain about not having enough space today, but I can see that that complaining is making the train move faster into better storage capacities and, thus, better computing for not just more amazing multimedia experiences, but for learning and science research.

It's also exciting, 'though scary, to watch general computing science get closer to more intelligent artficial intelligence systems; it won't be long before the power of the human mind is surpassed. I can't even imagine the advantages or disadvantages of such power, to be honest.

Skeeter · 11 Dec 2007 at 01:36

OvertoneBliss said:
It is quite amazing actually - the progress we've made - and it annoys me when people complain about not having enough space today, but I can see that that complaining is making the train move faster into better storage capacities and, thus, better computing for not just more amazing multimedia experiences, but for learning and science research.

Im begining to notice that demand for speed and space is starting to increase at a higher rate than storage and speed can keep up with

HD disks mean a film can now be well over 25 gigs.... What people want from the internet in terms of on demand services and speed of download require more than the 20mbit lines we currently have in the UK. People need (want?) more space!

LizardKing · 11 Dec 2007 at 09:56

And heres the first RAM patent, only 61 years old!
http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/index.php?seldate=12,11,1946