A bit of Nostalgia... A 4.4 MB Hard Disc Drive. Yes.... MB...!

[tug_hill2]

Hello Group, This link will take you to a small article about the world’s first hard drive released in 1956, it was made by IBM for their 305 RAMAC system. It held a whopping 4.4MB of data the information was stored on fifty 24 inch magnetic dics inside the system. IBM built over 1000 305’s with production ending in 1961.

At least you didn’t have to worry about someone breaking in to your house and wandering off with your hard drive. !!


Here is the Link:

http://fullygeek.com/2006/12/bytes-were-bigger-in-the-good-old-days/

[CrayonEater]

I remember in the late 80's, I think, getting my hands on a Tandy (I think) hard disk that was sold around '82 or '83. It help 10 Mb as was as slow as a floppy. It used a proprietary controller card and was about the size of a modern mini-tower. I took the thing apart after getting some 80 Mb drives and I remember it had either 4 or 6 12" platters. I actually had them stored until a few years ago. That and my TI-990 are two old relics I miss though.

[redwudz]

I saw a system with huge hard drives about 15 years ago, at a water company. Their hard drive was the size of a washing machine. The discs were visible, about ~2 ft. diameter, looked like maybe 10 or 15 stacked. Probably fairly small in total space, but interesting.

We've come a fair distance since then. I wish I had taken a few photos. 8)

[redwudz]

Some computer nostalgia links:

http://www.computerhistory.org/exhibits/
http://www.mos.org/tcm/tcm.html
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/brochure/museum.html
http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp
http://www.compustory.com/
http://www.science.uva.nl/museum/

I really enjoy these type of links. I have an early Mac b+W computer with a 9 inch screen that I am attempting to restore. I almost bought an Altair when they first came out, but the cost was too much at the time. I wish I had....

EDIT: Sorry to bump the topic, it's a passion.

[Bjs]

I still have some 40mb units here for the old 386 unit ... now making retirement as a door stopper ... still fire it up every now and then .

Without hd's :

The good old vz200 ... from dick smith ... bargain ... two giant box's full of games and hardware , for $200 at that time ... well it was a bargain back then ... and it filled the back of any ute ... thats how much stuff it came with ... programs loaded via cassette recorder ... where they fun ...

And the atari pc console ... what a blinder ... millipede ... be up all night playing that thing ...

I just realized I have a lot of junk hanging about ... that still work's ... lol

-----------------------

Dont forget that ibm refered to its drive as the 30 30 , as in reference to the winchester ... it's be a long time since ...

[FulciLives]

My first DOS/WINDOWS PC was a 386SX-16Mhz and it came with a whopping 80MB HDD which for the time (late 1990) was on the "big" side.

That same computer also came with one of the better (again for that time) 256 color VGA cards (Paradise I think) and it had 512k memory (or half of 1MB). I think the computer itself had either 1MB or 2MB RAM.

A couple months after I got the computer I bought the first Creative Labs Sound Blaster.

Those were the days LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I remember KING'S QUEST V was the first (or at least the first MAJOR) game to support 256 color VGA and I bought it the week it came out! Again that would have been either 1990 or 1991. As I recall the game came spread out over something like 20 3.5" floppies!

[dvdguy4]

My first DOS/WINDOWS PC was a 386SX-16Mhz and it came with a whopping 80MB HDD which for the time (late 1990) was on the "big" side.

That same computer also came with one of the better (again for that time) 256 color VGA cards (Paradise I think) and it had 512k memory (or half of 1MB). I think the computer itself had either 1MB or 2MB RAM.

A couple months after I got the computer I bought the first Creative Labs Sound Blaster.

Those were the days LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I remember KING'S QUEST V was the first (or at least the first MAJOR) game to support 256 color VGA and I bought it the week it came out! Again that would have been either 1990 or 1991. As I recall the game came spread out over something like 20 3.5" floppies!

A friend of mine wanted to sell me a comp once with just about everything you had minus the sound blaster. He wanted $500 without monitor, speakers, and mouse. Just the keyboard and cpu. Told him I'll wait a another year and I bought a compaq. Stupid me.

[FulciLives]

My first DOS/WINDOWS PC was a 386SX-16Mhz and it came with a whopping 80MB HDD which for the time (late 1990) was on the "big" side.

That same computer also came with one of the better (again for that time) 256 color VGA cards (Paradise I think) and it had 512k memory (or half of 1MB). I think the computer itself had either 1MB or 2MB RAM.

A couple months after I got the computer I bought the first Creative Labs Sound Blaster.

Those were the days LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I remember KING'S QUEST V was the first (or at least the first MAJOR) game to support 256 color VGA and I bought it the week it came out! Again that would have been either 1990 or 1991. As I recall the game came spread out over something like 20 3.5" floppies!

A friend of mine wanted to sell me a comp once with just about everything you had minus the sound blaster. He wanted $500 without monitor, speakers, and mouse. Just the keyboard and cpu. Told him I'll wait a another year and I bought a compaq. Stupid me.

I paid something like $2,500 for that computer [Fall of 1990]. That price included the computer, keyboard, mouse, DOS, Windows 3.0 (brand new at that time), Word For Windows 1.0 (which cost me $500.00 of that $2,500), and a 13" Sony Trinitron Monitor.

I forget how much the Sound Blaster cost ...

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Bjs]

You know this would make a good subject for a new poll ...

1: Pc's you have owned , specs , and the games you bought at that time .

My first real pc was a blue ??? , an ipex series .

486 dx2 66
540mb hd
8mb ram
Sound blaster
2x cdrom - creative
14" monitor
512kb video
15watt speakers

Privateer
Frontier
Doom
hexen
Shadow keeper

Dos 6.22
Win 3.11
Quicken

Canon 200ex printer (couldnt kill this beast)

I paid near $3000.00au in 1992/93

Lucky , I got my pc package complete when other's didnt get squat , only ripped off .

[oldandinthe way]

I didn;t realize you folks were such newbies.

Worked on Digital PDP-8's, IBM 1401, IBM7094 and the IBM360 Model 50 in 1969.

Our PDP-8 was rare because it had one of those washing machine sized HDD with removable disk packs interfaced to it. A custom design since the PDP-8 was a minicomputer and the drive ran off a mainframe channel. We switched the drive between systems manually. Our PDP-8 had 8k of system memory and did a lot of work.

Next came a Honeywell 16 series knock-off 4k with a 64kb tape loop for storage.

My early PC's included a Northstar and an Eagle running CP/M. Both dual floppy. We did install more 5mb 14" drives for customers.

When we opened our computer dealership we sold 8088 based PC compatibles for $2,500 each. Hard drives were 5mb MFM clunkers.

We still have a Northstar Advantage, Eagle II and an assortment of Amigas in the garage. And of course some unopened 286's we never did get around to taking to the dump.

[FulciLives]

I didn;t realize you folks were such newbies.

Worked on Digital PDP-8's, IBM 1401, IBM7094 and the IBM360 Model 50 in 1969.

Does it make you feel any older when I tell you that I wasn't born until 1972 ??? :P

Also my first computer was not that 386SX-16Mhz but a VIC-20 which was very shortly followed by a C-64 as the VIC-20 was pretty damn useless for the most part. The C-64 was a damn fine computer though

Not only did I play some crazy great games on the C-64 (such as Ultima III, IV and V) but I also used it to do spreadsheet work and to write all my high school papers.

You haven't lived unless you played the original WIZARDRY in pysedo 2D/3D vector type graphics LOL

And the Ultima of today is no comparrison to the masterwork that was ULTIMA IV - QUEST OF THE AVATAR

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SatStorm]

My first computer was a ZX Spectrum +, back in late 1983... I use to store the data on Cassete tapes...
3 years later, I got a ZX Spectrum 128+ ... Now that was the days!

[PhoneMatt]

I just came across an old box of old computer stuff. I found a copy of AppleDos on a cassette and an old Vulcan 5M hard drive. (I think that it cost $500.00 at the time.) I used both on my first Apple 2. I don't remember my first game, but do remember spending many hours playing Wizardry 1-6, and Zork. (And, how many times did you get lost in that twisty tunnel with lots of turns?)
I also found a "Welcome to America Online" booklet from 1989. It billed itself as the foremost online source for Apple 2's and Macs. (Yeah, that's how they started. Bought out AppleLink and grew from there. Dr. Frankenstein would have been proud of their growth!)

[SLK001]

Oh, yeah? Well, you really haven't done anything in computers until you have bootstrapped a computer using the front panel switches. By bootstrapping, I mean loading into memory a mini- operating system that tells the computer where to go to load the full OS.

[oldandinthe way]

SLK001

Been there done that. Keyed a boot to allow me to boot a secondary boot on punched paper tape which booted a program on paper tape. Didn't have an O/S at all.

Debugged software by watching the lights above the switches, a mystical experience.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The first program I wrote was in 1979.

I had to write in out in pencil on special pre-printed paper.

It would then be sent to the local polytechnic for someone to type in to the mainframe.

A few days later, I'd get back a stack of punch cards.

We had a TTY terminal - just paper - no VDU. The modem was the real deal - two big rubber cups to hold a telephone handset! Log in and run your program. If there was a mistake, rewrite, submit etc etc.

The best program on that mainframe was something called $pubs - it listed all the pubs in the city - about 850 of them. Took about 20 mins to print!

[dphirschler]

I forget how much the Sound Blaster cost ...

At the time the Adlib was the main sound card. But Creative Labs' Soundblaster was not only compatible, but offered more. I bought one of those original Soundblasters as well. I paid over $200 for it.


Darryl

[FulciLives]

I forget how much the Sound Blaster cost ...

At the time the Adlib was the main sound card. But Creative Labs' Soundblaster was not only compatible, but offered more. I bought one of those original Soundblasters as well. I paid over $200 for it.

Darryl

I remember now ... Adlib ... LOL forgot all about that.

Never had one but as I recall the SoundBlaster was considered to be better right? I can't imagine why else I would have bought it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman