Computer Technology in 1961

[kach22i]

Computer drive 1961
Air bearing rotating disc 6,000 rpm

This seems to be remotely similar to todays hard drives, what do you think?

I'm not quite up on my computer history, did common PC drive technology come from the aircraft industry?

Link - Verdan's Memory Unit:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1961/1961%20-%201430.html

[red-beard]

In the 1970's, I paid $70 for a 1.5MB disk pack. About equal to a HD 3.5" diskette.

[911pcars]

In the early 70's, most personal computers (IBM, Compaq) cost $3000 and usually had two floppy disk drives (1.2Mb/disk). An optional 20Mb hard drive cost $2K. That's Mb, not Gb.

Sherwood

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by 911pcars

In the early 70's, most personal computers (IBM, Compaq) cost $3000 and usually had two floppy disk drives (1.2Mb/disk). An optional 20Mb hard drive cost $2K. That's Mb, not Gb.

Sherwood

Early 1980's. The 1970's had the Apple I, the PET, the Altair, and the TI. I don't think the Trash-80 was out until 1980.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by 911pcars

In the early 70's, most personal computers (IBM, Compaq) cost $3000 and usually had two floppy disk drives (1.2Mb/disk). An optional 20Mb hard drive cost $2K. That's Mb, not Gb.

Sherwood

Oh, and the 5" floppy drive started out as 128K. Single sided, single density. We used to "double" the capacity of a floppy disk with a hole punch, then flipping it over.

And a harddrive was VERY VERY rare in the early 80's. Most had a single or dual floppies. The PS/2 standardized on dual 3.5" disks, but that was mid 80's.

Ah, the good old days, Lotus 1-2-3.

[Rick Lee]

If you ever make it to the Bay Area, I highly recommend the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. I had a meeting there in November and spent about an hour walking around beforehand. My dad worked at TX Inst. when I was a kid and I recognized a lot of stuff in the museum he used to have around the house in the '70's. Very cool museum and free admission.

[legion]

My father's first job out of college was as a salesman for IBM.

One day when I was little, he brought home a microcomputer (about the size of a dorm fridge) before he had to deliver it to a customer the next day and stayed up all night programming it to make an EBCDIC (it was IBM, after all) printout of Mickey Mouse.

My first computer was an IBM "portable" PC:



My dad had a random 8˝ floppy drive laying around as late as 2002.

[Joeaksa]

Friend of mine has an original Altair computer, one of the first.

Ahhh, the life of having a 10 meg hard drive and its being 20% full... and being happy with it!

[slodave]

This was my first:





No hard drive at first. Later, a 20 Meg Winchester unit with tape backup was installed. It died in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. I also used early Apples with cassette tapes or storage.

[HardDrive]

This was my first(see zee photo). My dad was an elementary school principal in a tiny Michigan town (South Lyon), and got this crazy idea to set up a computer lab at his school.....in 1979. We had a Commodore PET in our home, then later a VIC20, 64, then onward to Apples....

[HardDrive]

Oh yeah, more to the point, looking at memory and speed capacity of the past is not mind blowing. Thinking about the future is mind blowing. If you know where we have been, then your iphone can pretty much be labled 'magic' (yes, I'm familiar with the quote). But think where things will be in 20 years. Your 'cell phone' will be able to download and project movies, on demand, instantly. Which really just means that much better porn delivery is on the way.

[Hoots]

I had one of those. The good ole 8080A processor!!!

Originally Posted by legion

My first computer was an IBM "portable" PC:

I miss my commodore 64.

[john70t]

Father's first laptop.
Amazing machine that could edit text on the fly, save/copy/transfer, and print multiple copies after only a few hours with the dot-matrix printer.

[red-beard]

Dot matrix

brrrrzzzzzzpppppp

[Dennis Kalma]

Whenever I see those old machines, first of all it brings back memories....like installing the first VAX Cluster in Canada and having 1.8gB of storage, made up of 456mb hard drives each the size of a filing cabinet. Or doing tech support (the only one) for the first 14 IBM PC's at Shell Canada, and seeing the lineups form behind each machine as they used Visicalc instead of programmed spread sheets. Sigh.

Then I get REALLY ticked at how much of my current machine, which is some several thousands of times faster than the first PC and which is not doing a heck of a lot more for me. Yes Word processing is better....but not that much better, my use of Excel would probably work as well on Visicalc (I know, I am not an MBA so I really don't know the Power of the PowerPoint to shape the Truth).

Don't even get me started on how good my first Apple (a Lisa) was.....

Dennis

[74-911]

Originally Posted by red-beard

Early 1980's. The 1970's had the Apple I, the PET, the Altair, and the TI. I don't think the Trash-80 was out until 1980.

The first Trash-80, the Model I came out in 1978 IIRC. The Model II with the 8" floppies came out around 1980. The Model II was the first available with a hard disk drive. The HD was the size of a large brief case and was 8 MByte. Just the HD drive retailed for $4500. A Model II with the full 256KB of memory and an 8 meg HD drive retailed for ove $8K. Note: that is 256K of memory !!

We started our software business (writing programs to rate auto and homeowners insurance) in 1978 using Model I's and progressed to Model II's and eventually PC-XTs and PC-ATs and on up from there. Quite an interesting experience it was in those early days.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I had (and think still have somewhere back at my parents' place) a Timex-Sinclair 1000 and an Atari 400 (with the membrane keyboard - probably THE single worst invention in the history of planet earth, maybe second only to rap music) and a cassette tape drive (which cost about $500). The 5.25" floppy disk drive was too expensive at almost $1000 back then...

[nota]

when I worked for ryder trucking's main office
we upgraded from punch cards to paper tape

my first home box was a vic 20 then c64
later had a 8088 IBM

[legion]

I still work on the descendant of OS/390...

I had a dot-matrix printer in college in 1996. It took me three loud, whirring hours to print a 20-page paper (after staying up until 3:00 in the morning to write it). The next morning I spent $90 I didn't have to buy a bubblejet.

[slodave]

I have a client that still uses a dot matrix. Wide format to boot.