Hard disk nostalgia

[John Gray]

The 55th anniversary of the hard disk...

[ChrisGreaves]

The 55th anniversary of the hard disk...

Interesting.
I hadn't realized that the two arms were so lifelike; I always thought of them as thin steel rods, for some reason ...

ramac_mechanism.jpg

[Leif]

Interesting.
I hadn't realized that the two arms were so lifelike...

Actually, it's the world's first prototype thumb-drive. They dropped the unused fingers in later versions...

[jonwallace]

Actually, it's the world's first prototype thumb-drive. They dropped the unused fingers in later versions...

That'll be when they realized that they only needed thumbs to encode binary... :thumb_up: :no_thumb:

[HansV]

And a little while later, Facebook was born...

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[ChrisGreaves]

And a little while later, Facebook was born...

I thought Facebook stuff was filed under driveL:

[stuck]

And a little while later, Facebook was born...

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[ChrisGreaves]

The 55th anniversary of the hard disk...

Today's emails:-

DZ>>> I doubt I'll ever forget the moment when I bought my first USB, back in 2001: it had a 32MB capacity, and I marveled that it was more-or-less equivalent to carrying around thirty floppy discs - and it could fit in the coin pocket of my jeans.


I sometimes look at the 8GB chip, the size and thickness of either one, but only one, of my little-finger nails, and contemplate that in 1967 I lugged the FORTRAN compiler (2,000 no-printing punched cards) and my oil-droplet simulation (another 2,000 no-printing cards) back and forth between the computing centre and college each day, 2am and 6am. That must have been close to 10 or 15 pounds in my large briefcase.

4,000 punched cards would have held 320 KB in character form (one character per column) or 640K in binary form (two 6-bit bytes per column).


The little-finger nail chip makes no discernible difference to the weight of my smartphone which maintains contact with 9,000,000,000 other humans and probably 9,000 news sources. 9,000,000,000 people is, of course, a heavy load to carry (grin!)

Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

... and it could fit in the coin pocket of my jeans.

John: I'll save you some time.

"Coin"? What That?!!???
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

The little-finger nail chip makes no discernible difference to the weight of my smartphone which maintains contact with 9,000,000,000 other humans ...

Chris. Where did you find the extra one billion humans

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris. Where did you find the extra one billion humans

Same place I bury all my data - IN MY HEAD!
But see also https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

I suspect I must have been reading an article about population growth that said something like "in the year mumble-mumble we should reach nine billion".

I recall that in my High School years the population was 3 billion, and so the three billion intervals make sense to me as yardsticks rather than 8.1 Billion
But thank you for spotting my egregious error.
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

Feel good, Charles.
My comment proves that I found your thread interesting to read

[John Gray]

Feel good, Charles.
My comment proves that I found your thread interesting to read

But possibly not interesting enough to get Chris' name right!!
I must say I'm not surprised...

[RonH]

Oops ... maybe age related
Apologies Charles ... Chris ...

[ChrisGreaves]

Oops ... maybe age related
Apologies Charles ... Chris ...

Ron. DO pay attention. It\s "John", not Charles!!!
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

Oops ... maybe age related
Apologies Charles ... Chris ...

Ron. DO pay attention. It\s "John", not Charles!!!
Cheers, Chris

Perhaps I should just say "Oy you" Over and out

[John Gray]

Perhaps I should just say "Oy you" Over and out

Over and Out...

[ChrisGreaves]

Over and Out...

That's it! I'm outa here for a while ...
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

Perhaps I should just say "Oy you" Over and out

Over and Out...