Hard Disk Storage 1985 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 05:27:20 am
content: It's interesting that CD-ROM units were already available in 1985, so must have been introduced at least as early as 1984. Interesting, because for several years after, it was still more common to install software from floppies or tape cartridges rather than CD-ROMs. By about 1991, Unix workstations began to supply the operating system on CD-ROM, and the first MacOS with a CD-ROM release was System 7.0 in 1991 as well.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 06:10:16 am
content: From various old computer magazines I have read: early CD drives were very expensive, even 1x ones, let alone 2x and 3x.Anecdotal story about early CD burners: having no buffer or ability to handle physical disruption. The former meant your computer could not be used whilst burning. The latter meant bumping the table ruined a whole burn. All at low burn speeds

author: Daixiwen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 07:56:29 am
content: Yes the CD rom drives still costed a lot in the early 90's.My first CD burner was a 2x burner with a very small buffer and Windows 98. Blank CDR were also expensive, and I confirm that I wasn't doing anything with the PC as long as it was burning! The CD burning software displayed a big bar with the buffer status and if it ever reached 0 before the burner was finished, the CDR was toasted.Windows NT was a bit better with process priorities, and crashed a lot less than 98, so with NT4 I could dare use the PC a bit while it was burning.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 12:26:41 pm
content: I bought my first CD-ROM in a "Sound Blaster Edutainment CD 16 Multimedia Kit". Best I remember it was well over $500, maybe $600. Just guessing I'd say I probably bought it around '94 or '95. It definitely predated Windows 95. The kit included a pile of software, a Sound Blaster 16, and the CD-ROM. Since I'm a bit of a pack rat, I still have the original box. I think my old Super NES and Genesis consoles are stored inside it now. I don't think the drive and sound card are still around.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 01:48:59 pm
content: That channel is pretty cool, I love these retro videos. Also makes me feel old to call it retro.We tend to take the advancements in computer tech for granted now days.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 01:53:45 pm
content: My first CD-ROM device cost about GBP250 in 1993/4 as did my giant full size ISA SoundBlaster card.

author: bsudbrink
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 03:51:13 pm
content: My first job out of college was at a startup company putting databases on CD-ROM. We had some of the first Philips CM-100 drives and an original Meridian Data CD-Publisher. We sent our early images on 9-track tape to PDO Holland to be made into "glass masters" that were then reproduced by Philips US. This was before red book, mscdex and the like. We put our own custom data structures on the disc. I remember how amazing it was the first time I saw a machine that could burn a CD right there, regardless of the fact that it made "coasters" (failed burns) about half the time.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 03:52:58 pm
content: Hahaha I had one like that. 20Mb MFM drive.Does anyone remember CD drives with caddies?Starting to feel old now.

author: bsudbrink
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 03:58:26 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 03, 2018, 03:52:58 pmRemember??? Try "still have"!QuoteI'm probably older than you. We need a "gray beard" smiley icon.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 04:05:45 pm
content: I am ashamed to say that I don't even own a CD drive or CDs or CD player any more. I got a book with a CD a while back and a friendly forum member with the same one uploaded the CD to dropbox so I could download it.I'm old enough for 8 inch floppies, cassettes as storage and not quite old enough to have to toggle the boot loader in, thank goodnessAgree with grey beard icon

author: ferdieCX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 04:21:56 pm
content: I learned programming in an IBM 360/44 with punched cardsMy first job was repairing Olivetti Audit 6 boards.They used 8 inch floppies, but the system loader was in a 256 bytes magnetic card.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 04:36:08 pm
content: Teletypes and punched tapesAfter the CDs and CD-Rs came what, magneto-optical drives? Those were pretty unreliable!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 05:28:57 pm
content: We also got our first CD-ROM drive around 1993-94 as part of one of those Sound Blaster kits. It cost around $500 at the time which was a lot of money, but that was much cheaper than they had been a few years earlier. They existed in the 80s but they were far too expensive for the average consumer. It wasn't until the late 90s that a lot of software started using CDs as installation media. Previously most CD-ROM software ran primarily off the CD itself. Hard drives were far too small so CD-ROM was used for things like encyclopedias and interactive multimedia software that was too large to install on the hard drive. In 1994 40-120 MB (not GB!) hard drives were typical so the 630 MB stored on a CD-ROM was substantial.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 06:06:48 pm
content: Quote from: GeorgeOfTheJungle on July 03, 2018, 04:36:08 pmPunched tape wasthebest! Human readable, hand editable and repairable. You couldseewhen it was getting in danger of data corruption and create a verifiable backup. Also great fun to spool up again (assuming you hadn't trodden on it in the meantime!).It brings back many happy memories.P.S. Funny to think now that I was using MFM HDDs, removable 14" disk packs, Mag tapes and Floppies in 1985, all concurrent technology.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 06:32:06 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on July 03, 2018, 06:06:48 pmYes, the bestDaisy wheel printers were über cool too:And the IBM Selectric, I have one, a printer (not a typewriter) from the 60's, no videos of that on youtube it seems, one day I should do one.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 06:43:37 pm
content: You could work up to a hell of a speed winding it up. It took ages for the shiny callous on the side of my right index finger to disappear... As I say, unless you happened to be standing on it at the same time!

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 07:14:01 pm
content: Quote from: GeorgeOfTheJungle on July 03, 2018, 04:36:08 pmI was surprised to see MO not mentioned in the episode. When the reporter said Bernoulli had competition from optical media, my mind leapt directly to MO; but they were talking about CD-ROMs! Not only that, but the drive pictured uses a tray and not a caddy. Talk about future shock.According to wikipedia, CD-ROM was introduced by Denon and Sony in 1984. Magneto-Optical drives were first sold in 1985, so it's a mystery why they are absent from this Computer Chronicles episode.The first CD-R recorders I've heard of came out in 1992: the Philips CDD-521 and the Sony CDW-900E. They cost from $5,000 to $10,000 at the time. Industry magazines noted that Magneto-Optical was faster and less expensive!Quote from: james_s on July 03, 2018, 05:28:57 pmThe first CD-ROM drive was the Philips CM100. Since this was long before ATAPI, and SCSI was still in a primitive state, it used a proprietary LMSI host connection that was still being used through the mid-1990s. The drive with its interface card cost $1,500 in 1986, which was the equivalent of over $2,000 in 1994 dollars.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 08:29:26 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 03, 2018, 04:05:45 pmAsk and you shall receive:

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 10:11:53 pm
content: In the vidjeo, that's the same Gary Killdall of CP/M and Digital Research?

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2018, 10:32:52 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on July 03, 2018, 08:29:26 pmI like that. Needs to be added.The irony here is that Bob would have tossed all the computers from a roof

author: Eka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2018, 03:43:38 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 03, 2018, 04:05:45 pmI have a pair of 8" floppy drives that I use for bookends. They get a lot of attention from people who are seeing my place for the first time. I wish I had an old 8" HD or two to do the same with. Lots of old time geeks among my friends.I never used paper tape, but I did use punch cards for a short bit.As for toggling in the boot code, the first computer I used needed it to be done. Until I added a paged EEPROM storage bank to it and gave it a resident OS. Oh, I also eventually reimplemented the whole thing from discrete resistor transistor logic and core memory on hundreds of 100mm x 60mm cards to TTL logic and SRAM chips using 4 12" by 18" wire wrap circuit boards. Had to retime the whole thing because it was running much faster.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2018, 06:11:40 am
content: TI980 minicomputer around 1976. The way it was set up, one toggled in a minimal boot sequence to read from the paper tape reader. The paper tape loop then loaded a program to read the first sector of the single platter 14 inch cartridge disk drive. That in turn loaded a proper operating system and the TTY became the console.Another minicomputer (Sigma 2) I also had access to had a literal patch panel for the cold boot sequence. No toggling required. Not that I ever had to actually reboot that one.

author: RobK_NL
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2018, 07:52:18 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 03, 2018, 04:05:45 pmIn the mid-90's I worked for IBM in the test/repair/refurbishment department for the 3370 series hard disks. These beasties:The controller for these was one of these big cabinet things and it took an 8" floppyandsome toggling to get it up and running.Mind you, the 3370 series was introduced in 1979 and had a capacity of over 500MB. later models had over 700MB.Quote+1

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2018, 08:07:15 am
content: I had a circular saw that looked less scary than that

author: RobK_NL
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2018, 08:28:10 am
content: Probably lighter too; over 20kg IIRC. We also did the 3380, which were even larger and heavier.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2018, 09:23:15 am
content: I'd love to have one of those.

author: RobK_NL
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2018, 07:30:54 pm
content: Only have two platters and a head assembly, sorry

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2018, 02:41:38 pm
content: And that's just the drive, you should see the motor that spins it!One of the places I worked had a huge IBM 390 (and clone) data center, 13TB of DASD took up one huge room, the processors were in another. I have more than 13TB in my mini-tower server at home.

author: duak
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2018, 05:57:39 pm
content: I got a 15 Mb Honeywell hard drive with a pack in 1978. It used late 60's technology and was about the size of a washing machine. The controller/formatter was apparently about the size of a fridge. I was able to spin up the drive and load the heads and see some data with a 'scope. The head actuator was hydraulic and was driven off the spindle by a big flat belt and was about as loud as a Shop-vac. I later worked with an ex-DEC guy that said that the flat belt often fell off when it collected enough oil. If it was writing at the time it would first overwrite the data with longer bits and then grind off the oxide as the heads moved away from that cylinder and stopped flying.I saved the frame for a work table and used the motor for a grinder. I'm thinking of using the spindle for something like a surface grinder. I took the pack apart and found two roached platters where the heads crashed.In late 1980 I got one of the first Shugart (not Seagate) 8" hard disks with, count 'em, 4 Mb. With the SASI (precursor to SCSI) controller it came to about $2K. I was playing with assemblers and a C complier at the time and it reduced run times by about 60-80% over dual 8" floppies. I last ran it about 10 years later and it still worked. It was a hoot to boot into CP/M in less than a second. I still have it and one of these days I might try it again. Any comments on whether the heads might peel the oxide off the platter because it hasn't been used for so long? It didn't have a dedicated landing zone but I always tried to set it over the innermost cylinder when shutting it off.I'd say that by 1985 small disks were commodities and the price per bit really started to drop. Weren't there like over 20 manufacturers of small disk drives about then?Cheers,

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2018, 07:39:46 pm
content: 1985 sounds about right, the IBM XT had been on the market for a couple years by then and clone manufactures were popping up like dandelions. Hard drives were still expensive, but 10-20MB drives had come down in price to the point where a good number of computer users could afford the convenience of having one.It wasn't until the mid 2000's though that capacities really started to overtake demand. These days it's pretty much only serious photographers and media hoarders who need more than the smallest commodity drives on the market. Used to be a top of the line drive was filled to the brim within a year or two.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2018, 08:48:47 pm
content: I knew a gentleman that worked on a drum drive. The was quite a large system. He told a story about how it came apart one time. The first hard drive I used with the PC was a Corvus. At the time I had a drive made by Data General that had a removable 14" pack and a fixed drive on one spindle. This was used on a Nova 3. We also had a hard drive from Hewlett Packard that used HPIB. The was physically very large and had the platters mounted vertically.This picture show with one of my early turbo AT clones. The disk drives are to the right and are larger than the AT. Tape drive is just above them on the far right. That's my Summa Graphics optical mouse. None of that ball crap.I still have a Seagate 5.25" 20M ST225 in operation inside my oldest DSO.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 02:17:01 pm
content: Quote from: Whales on July 03, 2018, 06:10:16 amI still remember having access to the IT department of my university and they had aKodak PCD 225 Writerthat could write at 2x and interfaced via SCSI-1 with its exclusive PC host running Windows 3.11 andCorel CD Creator1 (the later version 2.0 was much more reliable).Whenever we were burning a CD (US$20.00 a pop), the table was not to be touched and the computer was not to be fiddled with. Still, we lost 25% of the CDs recorded then.Another area that was quite sensitive was extracting audio from an audio CD - any keypress on the host PC and the resulting .wav file was full of pops and clicks.One year earlier we had bought our first CD ROM drive (a Toshiba 4x caddy CD drive with SCSI-1 interface - similar tothis one) that was incredibly reliable and could read terribly scratched CDs. For a brief time I connected it to a Sound Blaster card that had a SCSI-1 interface.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 03:01:19 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 04, 2018, 08:07:15 amEmergency retract on those things could leave fingerprints (and fingers) on the platters.My first CD-ROM reader was a 2x SCSI with caddy and in an external case, it was 'bought' for the bargain price of a dozen capacitors that needed replacing in the PSU, it had been tossed as unrepairable by a client who'd paid the wrong side of £400 for it.I've had HDDs back to 20MB MFM and repaired older 5MB Rodimes, replacing individual heads and platters in them

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 03:38:19 pm
content: I remember how exciting it was when my friend got a 2x CD burner, I think it cost him $500 at the time. The blank discs were $10 each and the slightest glitch would cause it to make a coaster. I'm not sure why they didn't have some sort of buffer, RAM was expensive but not *that* expensive. I guess the drives were already do expensive without it.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 05:25:01 pm
content: Well, and not long after the 2x burners became common, buffer RAM did become common, and grew in capacity (all the way up to 16MB in the Yamaha 4416, IIRC). Not long after that, somebody figured out how to make CD burners that could interrupt recording and pick up again where they left off (leaving just a few bad bits that the drive ignored as dust on reading). Between that and superior computers and OSes that could handle the data streams better, the need for the large buffers diminished, and CD burners reverted to 2MB buffers. DVD-R drives mostly use 8MB I think.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 06:35:36 pm
content: Given a write speed of 300kBps for a 2x drive it surprises me that a buffer of 2MB was not more than sufficient. I know computers were a lot slower back then but even so, I don't fully understand why it was such a challenge to keep a burner fed with steady data.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 07:01:00 pm
content: Mainly due to the shitty IO subsystem that infested windows 9x variants.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 07:41:52 pm
content: And before that, Windows 3.x releases and their "cooperative" multitasking were absolutely appalling. Poorly written drivers and applications completely hijacked the system at times - it was not uncommon for the Corel CD Creator SW to freeze when it was starved of ACKs from the drive.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:12:11 pm
content: And in all fairness, the Macs of the era were only trivially better. In classic Mac OS you couldn’t dare try and burn in the background, at least not on burners without huge buffers. (Mac OS X could do it quite well.)I think a lot of the problem with burning in the early days was that you weren’t just streaming a finished disc image to the burner. You were burning discs of files, and those files could be anywhere on the disk, and could be fragmented. (Windows back then was AWFUL about fragmentation.) So you could have a horribly fragmented file that had to be burned, but turned out to be in so many pieces that seeking to them reduced throughout to below the speed the burner needed.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:45:32 pm
content: Ugh classic macs were vile creations. I refused to poke them until Unix appeared underneath.Just a point that windows fragmentation is still awful now on NTFS by design. Try burning lots of small files. Due to small files being stored in the MFT it causes masses of IO contention that can bring even a nice enterprise SSD to its knees.You can watch this in action with WSL on windows 10. On the same hardware it takes nearly 40x the time to do an initial grep of the Linux kernel source compared the the same thing on native ext4/Linux install. When it is cached on both platforms it’s a lot faster but windows is then 40x slower due to the cost of NT system calls instead.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 10:58:37 pm
content: I never liked Macs back in the day but then ended up with a number of different 68k Macs in my collection alongside some similar age PC hardware. I have to say, the Macs were so far ahead of the PC stuff of that era it's not even funny, there's just no contest. 640x480 or higher with 8 bit color, multi-monitor capable, plug & play that worked, clean polished UI, mice/keyboards that could be daisy chained, onboard SCSI, 3.5" floppies with electric eject that detect disc insertion, built in 8 bit audio in the early ones, 16 bit stereo later. With exception of the low cost consumer models the hardware design is slick, resembling that of high end workstations. A Mac II from 1987 makes a 286 DOS PC look like an antique relic. You could pop 6 video cards in the Mac and connect 6 different monitors, everything would auto-detect and configure and it would boot up with each monitor set to the proper resolution, I didn't see proper multi-monitor on PCs until Windows NT and it was tricky to set up.The downside is they were very expensive, and they sort of stagnated while PCs steadily improved and eventually surpassed them in most ways.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 04:26:09 am
content: Favorite keystrokes ... >g c800:5And most optimal MFM interleave = 4 for "turbo" enabled CPU.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 07:39:05 am
content: Quote from: james_s on July 10, 2018, 10:58:37 pmMy own Apple II+ had four green phosphor CRT screens, back in 1980 when there was no IBM PCs nor Macs yet. One was the built in video, the other three were Videx Videoterms. In theory I could have had 8 screens in total: built in video + 7 Videoterms.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 07:49:15 am
content: Quote from: james_s on July 10, 2018, 10:58:37 pmI worked on a lot of that era's Mac hardware, had some very nice 680x0 in circuit emulators, about £60K worth eventually, the 68000 pod didn't work well with them because they did multitasking properly in hardware and the pod designers had been lazy/cheap so it failed pretty early in the Mac ROM initialisation process but the rest were a dream to use.The Macs were wonderfully designed and built hardware but what a crappy company to have dealings with, we got a few stern letters and injunctions to try and get us out of the Mac repair business, Apple *really* don't like competition.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 08:18:30 am
content: They soon realized that with open systems like the Apple II people were buying not Apple's but third parties' expansion cards, which were either cheaper or simply better than their own. The Apple /// was a first (failed) step towards a closed system, and the Mac further more. Jeez, with the II you got commented ROM listings and the schematics and even hand written notes by Woz, with enough info to understand how the whole damn thing worked and to design your own expansion/peripheral cards if you wanted, which clearly was something against their own interests.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 08:53:38 am
content: This is one reason I liked Acorn and bought into their ecosystem back then. Apart from the platform crapping on everything from space (32-bit ARM in 1987!), you could get a reference manual for every piece of hardware they sold which contained service information, schematics, memory maps, the lot. The whole platform was open and everyone could build peripherals for it or modify the OS and system.Typical example:Hardware:http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/docs/Acorn/Manuals/Acorn_A4001R140SM.pdfSoftware:http://www.riscos.com/support/developers/prm/Random nostalgia trip... ARM assembly hello world

author: Naguissa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 01:39:23 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 03, 2018, 03:52:58 pmI remember my 2x cdrom on a 486 that you pushed it and nostly all drive came out. Then, you open the upper part like a boombox to access the disc.Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 08:17:36 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on July 11, 2018, 07:49:15 amCan't argue with you there. Apple as a company is not something I've ever been fond of, well not since the early days of the Apple II anyway. Unlike many people though, I'm able to separate Apple products from Apple the company, and I can appreciate well designed products even if I'm not fond of the company.Really in the case of Apple it's the cult like dedication of a portion of their customer base that I find distasteful. Waiting in line for hours to get the latest iPhone? No thanks, I'll order last year's model at steep discount online and have it in my hand a day or two later without any hassle.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 10:00:51 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 11, 2018, 08:53:38 amThat's a true Archimedes? A Raspberry? Please bring forward the source code window, I'm curious!

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 11:15:20 pm
content: That is RPCemu running RISC OS 3.71. Using the BASIC inline assembler and Edit! Editor. Note that everything you see there comes on ROM built into the machine. Nothing is loaded off disc.I don’t have the host machine running but basically it loads the address of the message and calls the OS to write it out with some alignment gubbins. Nothing clever. Code I used (as I’m rusty as hell) is here:https://www.heyrick.co.uk/assembler/basic.html.. the for loop is part of the assembler and species what passes to run.Lovely platform to write code on. All of the applications on it were written in ARM assembly right up to the level of the built in Draw! app which is a fully layered vector graphics editor with anti aliased rendering etc.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2018, 12:35:26 am
content: About ten years ago I was walking in my neighborhood and I saw an odd thing on the ground, a full height 5.25 HD. I picked it up and it was a 1G ESDI Micropolis monster. I took the 4 magnets out of the actuator and BOY are they strong!I think it's a late '80s thing.

author: Ghelander
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 01, 2021, 02:34:44 pm
content: I have one of these drives sitting on a shelf in my office. Looking to sell, any idea of the value?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2021, 08:05:58 pm
content: Quote from: Ghelander on October 01, 2021, 02:34:44 pmIt's worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it. Does it work? If you can't verify operation it is not worth much, if it does work, it depends on the specifics and whether you can find somebody who wants that specific drive. Just a wild assed guess I'd peg the value at somewhere between $20 and $200. It all depends on finding someone who wants it.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2021, 08:07:11 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on July 12, 2018, 12:35:26 am1GB ESDI would have been mid 90s. They cost around $1200 at the time, I remember drooling over them in catalogs.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2021, 05:55:08 pm
content: By 1992 Micropolis were already selling 2GB SCSI-2 systems.https://manx-docs.org/collections/antonio/chrisq/Micropolis_-_Subsystems_for_PCs_and_Compatibles.pdf

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2021, 06:57:28 pm
content: I guess it could have been late 80s, but even in the 90s a 1GB hard drive was huge. SCSI and ESDI coexisted for a while, I think the biggest ESDI drive I ever personally saw was 170MB. I think I finally got a 1GB drive around 1998, by that time a 3.5" IDE.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2021, 11:28:32 pm
content: I still have my Maxtor 8760E 670MB 5.25" full height ESDI drive, which cost about $900 new.

author: ozcar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 12:17:17 am
content: Quote from: duak on July 06, 2018, 05:57:39 pmThere were certainly some weird and wonderful early data storage devices. My list of favourites would have to include the Noodle Snatcher (aka the Washing Machine or Maytag). Here a bloke has a picture of one, and is of the opinion that it was designed by the Rube Goldberg division at IBM:https://billyjim47.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-life-with-technology-chapter-11.htmlActually it was apparently designed by the Alan Shugart division, or at least by a team that he headed. Yep, him of Shugart Associates, and later Seagate fame.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 01:07:33 am
content: I have a Maxtor 5.25" SCSI drive over at my mom's place, I think it's a 1GB unit. One of these days I should drag it home and see if it still works. I think there's still a 486 with a 650MB 5.25" SCSI drive too, I used that as a server back in the late 90s.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 09:50:33 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 03, 2021, 01:07:33 amHeh, ran a BBS from an Amiga and then later a PC with a pair of Maxtor XT4380S drives

author: AaronLee
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 10:25:53 am
content: Quote from: james_s on July 11, 2018, 08:17:36 pmThe original Macs were not a well designed product, from a software standpoint, IMHO. I worked a lot on Apple II and some on Apple III products and was quite excited when the Mac first came out, given it was a huge leap from the PC and standard computers of the day. My enthusiasm quickly changed to disdain for the company and their products though when I saw the horrible mess that was the original Mac OS. It was totally filled with bugs and released way too prematurely, but I assume management (Steve Jobs most likely) pushed it through anyways. As a software developer, you had to run through hoops to get around all the bugs and non-working functions. Many users likely never even knew how horrible the OS was under the hood, but developers certainly did.Well, Steve Jobs, a man who many think was brilliant, some who even consider him almost a god, was someone I couldn't stand and I never understood one bit all the hype and praise given to him. He's long gone now though, and last year I decided to give Apple another chance, with the release of their M1 Mac, and have to say I'm impressed, especially from the standpoint of value for one's money in terms of speed, at least value compared to previous generation Macs. I still prefer PCs running Windows, given that's where I've invested most of my efforts and is the only environment capable of running lots of the apps I require. But for audio, video, and other creative type apps, I think Mac is the preferred platform.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 11:39:46 am
content: A 5-Mb Hard-Drive being loaded onto a Pan Am flight, in 1956 !!!Evidently, today it could store just one hi-res iPhone picture.It was available for 'Rent', at about $3,500 per Month...

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 03:35:06 pm
content: First couple of minutes of this video I show some of my old drives. One is an old 2G full height single ended SCSI drive. Cost on these is something better forgotten.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 05:32:26 pm
content: Well, since this thread evolved to a "show your HDD"... In the first minutes of this video I show an ancient Seagate ST296N 80MB SCSI-1 HDD working more than 20 years after its last powerup. I got it to use on my Roland W-30 sampler but never got around to do it.https://youtu.be/ycM6YOSkxl8

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 05:41:12 pm
content: Quote from: AaronLee on October 03, 2021, 10:25:53 amAlthough the Mac OS prior to version 10 (or "X") was interesting under some aspects, when I used its version 9 it was terribly outdated technologically when compared to Microsoft and Linux offers of the time.But even the Apple II original was very interesting but I couldn't get past its fringe colors around its white pixels - something fixed in later revisions of the hardware. Those versions really looked better in a monochrome monitor. Otherwise, it was a very decent product at its prime.Quote from: AaronLee on October 03, 2021, 10:25:53 amChuck Peddle used to say that Steve Jobs was given more praise than he deserved, while Bill Gates was villanized more than he deserved.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 06:47:47 pm
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on October 03, 2021, 03:35:06 pmSweet! If ads in the back of old computer magazines are reliable, something like a 1-2G HDD back in the late 80s and early 90s would have been in the 3000$ range. I wonder how many HDs were specced in their unformatted capacity though. Is 1G unformatted the same as 676M formatted?From what I see they would have been used for mastering CDs, editing videos and special effects.Nothing like the 20-60MB hard drives the average consumer would have even considered buying.

author: ozcar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 07:55:31 pm
content: Quote from: GlennSprigg on October 03, 2021, 11:39:46 amThat device was the heart of a system dubbed "RAMAC" by IBM in 1956. You can see the disk in operation here:.Note how the read mechanism has to not only move in and out to the desired track, but also vertically to the required surface. Another highlight of that video to me is the point where they speak in glowing terms of the "wired control panel", and then proceed to open what looks like a trash can filled with a tangle of scrap cables.I have seen that photo before somewhere. It reminded me of when the place where I was working in the early '70s ordered their first "System 370" machine. It was a model 155, which was the last IBM mainframe to have a "face" with hundreds of little lights in rows, and I think also their last mainframe to use magnetic core storage. When it was being unloaded at the airport, part of it was dropped off a forklift and pretty badly damaged. They managed to pull the heavy metal frame back into shape, and got it working, but if you knew where to look you could always see the kinks in the frame.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 10:44:07 pm
content: Quote from: AaronLee on October 03, 2021, 10:25:53 amI don't think I would have enjoyed being around Jobs, but it is undeniable that he was extremely talented. Not so much as an engineer, but as a salesman. Also his extreme attention to detail is largely what made Apple products as good as they were. Just comparing iOS 6 to iOS 7 demonstrates this, 6 was extremely polished, consistent and reliable, 7 was a disjointed mess. They've had a mix of pretty good releases and turds in the meantime.I was never a Mac guy back in the day, but today when I compare a Mac from say 1989 to a PC of the same era there is no comparison. The Mac while more expensive was so far ahead it's not even funny. 32 bit CPU, plug & play NuBus cards with no configuration jumpers, built in SCSI, high resolution (for the time) color video that could automatically detect the capabilities of the monitor that was connected. A standardized peripheral bus (ADB) many years before USB was developed. Built in networking in the form of AppleTalk, built in 8 bit digital audio. Luxurious feeling floppy drives with electric eject, nice clean tool-free cases where most of the components just click into place with very few screws even internally. Unfortunately this all came at a cost, and a machine like the Mac II was exorbitantly expensive, several times the price of a typical 286 PC of the era and had a more limited software library. Steve Jobs at one point declared that "The Macintosh is not a toy" and did not actively pursue games, a huge mistake in my opinion because everyone knows that the vast majority of home computers while ostensibly good for all sorts of productive tasks, spent most of their time running games, and games are to this day what drives a lot of the upgrading.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 10:46:26 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on October 03, 2021, 09:50:33 amMy friend ran a BBS on an enormous Pentium 60, I remember the case had casters on it and was about a foot wide and 3 feet tall and had a couple of those 1GB drives in it. I think he eventually retired that machine and gave me one of the drives, which is where the one I have probably came from.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2021, 07:05:48 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 03, 2021, 10:44:07 pmJobs was fired by Apple's board in 1985. The Mac II was announced in 1987, when Jobs was at NeXT preparing the NeXT Computer for its public release in 1988. The executive responsible for the Mac II was JLG: Jean-Louis Gassée. His focus was scientific computing, graphic design, and executive workstations for the paperless office, etc, and perceived competition from Sun and HP: not from PC clones. The six-slot Mac II machines were actually more expensive than the NeXTstation or some Sun workstations. This is the period when Apple attempted to design their own performance-leading RISC architecture called "Scorpius". JLG would also be pushed out, much as Jobs had been, by the board after Apple started to lose money in the early 1990s.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2021, 09:11:18 pm
content: Yes I'm aware of that, then some time later Jobs came back. I was mixing and matching different eras, but at any rate the Mac was far ahead for a long time, but far more expensive. The original models introduced a lot of concepts that stuck with the lines, but a serious fault was their lack of expandability which was a poor decision mostly pushed by Jobs. The NeXT machines were amazing, but far too expensive and even less software support.

author: AaronLee
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2021, 12:02:14 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 03, 2021, 10:44:07 pmAnd he also once said something to the effect that nobody would ever need a smartphone with a screen larger than 3.5" and that is was the perfect size. I laughed so hard when I heard that, at that time, because it made me realize how completely foolish he'd become, into thinking so narrowly that his personal view of a product was the only view. If there were a lot of people that also held his view, or a lot of people who didn't, but could be convinced to change their view to his view, then Apple could sell a lot of their products. But they could have sold a whole lot more if they (Steve Jobs) didn't have such a narrow view of the market for their products. The current management at Apple seems to be catching on to that point, whereas Steve Jobs never did.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2021, 12:06:33 am
content: Quote from: AaronLee on October 06, 2021, 12:02:14 amI actually agree with him on that. Maybe not the part that nobody will ever need a larger screen, but it is the perfect size. I really hate the giant phones and "phablets" (*cringe*) that have been all the rage for years. I got my first iphone specifically because it was the only decent small smartphone I could find, and I got my SE for the same reason. I really do not understand the appeal of gigantic phones at all, I have laptops and tablets for when I want something larger, a phone is a pocket sized communication device that I always have on me, as long as it's large enough to type a text on, the smaller the better.If they want to make bigger ones for people that desire those, great, but I really hope they keep offering something compact and support it well. Already I sometimes find apps that don't work right on it because needed buttons are off the edge of the screen.

author: AaronLee
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2021, 12:44:37 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 06, 2021, 12:06:33 amIt all comes down to each individual's use case, preferences, etc. Some people have bad eyes, and small fonts on a small screen simply won't work. Some people, even for texting like to see more than just two lines of the text they're replying to and two lines of the text they're typing. That one was one of my huge pet-peeves with those tiny screens, where I'd type a sentence, then go back to proofread it, and need to scroll due to such small screen real estate. The problem is further exasperated due to the need for the on-screen touch keypad, and which is difficult to type for someone with big hands but tiny touch areas, where you're always mistyping the keys next to what you intended. There just isn't enough space on a 3.5" screen for what some people need to be efficient. Of course some people watch videos on their smartphones and want a bigger screen for that (myself not included).Anyways, as for the device easily fitting inside your pocket, the ability to easily hold the device, and swivel your thumb/fingers around to do the necessary actions, I would tend to agree that 3.5" is at or close to an optimal size. But depending on the app you're using, and how you use it, it might be far from optimal with regard to fitting everything on the screen so that it's easily usable. I agree they should continue to sell the smaller size phones, because for some people, it's exactly what they need. They also need to sell what other people need, which is a much bigger device. And that's my whole point, that Jobs couldn't see what were the needs of anyone beyond his narrow view. It wasn't that his view was bad. His view may have been and still is perfect for some. It's just that it's horrible for others.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2021, 10:50:08 am
content: Quote from: AaronLee on October 06, 2021, 12:44:37 amThat is the point; the use of screen realstate is much more limiting depending on the use you give to it. If you do everything on the smartphone, the more the merrier as the soft keyboard is one of the most used and most realstate hungry applet. Not only that, but a significant part of the population uses purses, which reduces the pressure to keep the devices as small as possible. As for me, give me a physical keyboard any day instead of soft keys, but that is long lost in the past.As a personal communicator and phone, perhaps the 3.5'' (or whereabouts) is the perfect size as the keyboard use is somewhat less intense. As for me, I never liked the candybar form factor that much and preferred a flip form factor, but that is also long lost in the past. Yes, Samsung is coming with foldable screens, but after having kids I don't have the expenditure to be an early adopter anymore...

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2021, 09:11:53 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on October 06, 2021, 10:50:08 amYou sound like a CommLock man!

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2021, 04:00:23 am
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on October 06, 2021, 09:11:53 pmI got that reference!

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2021, 12:28:56 pm
content: Quote from: RobK_NL on July 04, 2018, 07:52:18 amI also worked on them in Australia when I worked at IBM too. I remember there was a problem with stiction, especially if the drives were powered off over a long weekend.But I go back further than that, to the System/32 HDD. 3.1MB or 5MB HDD that took two blokes to lift and it cost a fortune.But I go back ever further than that to the Stringy Floppy!!!! I am sure few people here would have ever heard of a stringy floppy.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2021, 01:24:08 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on October 11, 2021, 12:28:56 pmWhat? I have one in my closet.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2021, 08:38:45 am
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on October 11, 2021, 01:24:08 pmIt might be quite valuable to a collector or as a museum piece. Certainly beat cassette tapes in the day. It could be fun in getting it going, even if you have to design an interface.All my old stuff is long gone except my FRG-7 (1977); and my Farad-80 scientific calculator (1976) which is on my desk and I still use it.I adopt the "If in doubt, throw it out" guideline to uncluttered living. That being said, my son's friend threw out an old hard disk that had 20 bitcoins that he mined on it. At the time they were worth about $4. He is kicking himself.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2021, 12:17:41 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on October 13, 2021, 08:38:45 amI know. Wafer drives or stringy floppies are just a endless loop tape in a tiny cartridge.https://computersmuseum.com/technical/reviews/quick-data-drive/They fail. My drive could be a shelf queen, right now it's a closet pig.

author: ferdieCX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2021, 12:19:29 am
content: In 1969, Olivetti introduced the Auditronic 770 account machine.It also used a cyclic tape driveLink in italianhttp://museo.dagomari.prato.it/singolo.php?cod=167&ord=1

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2021, 08:21:25 am
content: The 1980s "stringy floppy" was a miniaturized endless-reel (like an 8 Track cart) tape device, a cheaper alternative to 5.25" floppy drives for home computers like ZX Spectrums. A similar process led to Mitsui's QuickDisk (QD) format, which could not seek, but simply scanned the whole surface in an endless spiral as it turned.Long before that, there was an IBM system called the 2321 Data Cell (1964) that used strips of magnetic tape that it fished out of a barrel (it was called "the noodle snatcher" by field service).

author: Neper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2021, 02:07:46 pm
content: My first contact with data storage was during my apprenticeship in the offices of a German glass factory, around 1974. Their computer system was an IBM 360 and the head of the computer department let me put the lists of my music tapes on punch cards, so I could sort and print them out in various ways. The cards themselves made a very convenient card file.Years later, the first hard drive I didn't buy was an optional one for my DEC Rainbow 100 computer: 7000 deutschmarks for 5 MB. Thanks but no, thanks.The first one I actually bought was a 20 MB 5 1/4" "half-height" MFM drive (or was it RLL?) for my Amiga 2000: 1200 deutschmarks at the time. Never thought I'd be able to fill that drive. A few months later, it had magically filled up and a 50 MB 3 1/2" hard drive soon followed. Five years later, lightning struck and killed my then Amiga 3000. The insurance kindly paid for a Amiga 3000T with a drive of mind-boggling capacity: 1 GB! Never thought I'd be able to fill that. A few months later...Today, I couldn't even say how many drives with how much capacity are running in this place. Yet, I'll need a few more soon.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2021, 04:19:09 pm
content: Do you still have that A3000T? Asking for a friend.

author: Neper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2021, 04:51:29 pm
content: No. Had to go to contribute to the purchase of a Mac G3.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2021, 12:01:21 pm
content: I once backed up a whole IBM Main-Frame computer onto a Streamer-Tape, and re-formatted it. (Re-installed again, OK).It was a central computer for a certain Prison. It was slow to respond to certain field equipment/panels & trigger points.This was the equivalent to doing a 'defrag' on some later systems, and took 2 secs off the alarm times!The boss was surprised that I did it, but was happy that it worked!!