The 5MB Double-Wide Refrigerator
- Dale
- The Landlord
- Posts: 10293
- Joined: Wed May 16, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Chiff & Fipple's LearJet: DaleForce One
- Contact:
The 5MB Double-Wide Refrigerator
I've long been fascinated by the astonishing curve we're all riding: Cheap data storage. NEWSWEEK has a fascinating piece on it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14096484/site/newsweek/
Turns out the first hard drive was built 50 years ago. Weighed a ton and was the size of two refrigerators. 5 MB.
8GB USB thumb drives are now available, and the prices ALREADY down to $175 (newegg.com) I just bought a 1 GB for $24. That's crazy.
I find myself wanting an 8 GB although I have no use for it whatever.
Dale
Turns out the first hard drive was built 50 years ago. Weighed a ton and was the size of two refrigerators. 5 MB.
8GB USB thumb drives are now available, and the prices ALREADY down to $175 (newegg.com) I just bought a 1 GB for $24. That's crazy.
I find myself wanting an 8 GB although I have no use for it whatever.
Dale
Last edited by Dale on Sun Jul 30, 2006 7:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- Congratulations
- Posts: 4215
- Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:05 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Charleston, SC
- Contact:
Re: The 5MB Double-Wide Refrigerator
I'd say put windows on it, but you can't boot from USB.Dale wrote:I find myself wanting an 8 GB although I have no use for it whatever.
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
- dfernandez77
- Posts: 1901
- Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 11:09 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: So, please write a little about why you are interested. We're just looking for something that will make it clear to us, when we read it, why you are registering and that you know what this forum is all about.
- Location: US.CA.Tustin
Re: The 5MB Double-Wide Refrigerator
I can boot from USB on some of my newer servers. Never tried with a Windows OS though. I think it would fail because anything Win2K plus has a Hardware Abstraction Layer that would balk if it doesn't dovetail into what it expects to see.Congratulations wrote:I'd say put windows on it, but you can't boot from USB.
I know what you mean Dale. I saw this for US$99 after rebate and almost bought it - even though I don't need it.
Daniel
It's my opinion - highly regarded (and sometimes not) by me. Peace y'all.
It's my opinion - highly regarded (and sometimes not) by me. Peace y'all.
- lenf
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:53 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Pretty far south
Re: The 5MB Double-Wide Refrigerator
I quite remember building an 8K expansion board for my first computer. The board was about 20" square, used 58 chips, all in handwired sockets. I knew I'd never need the total 16K, which was cutting edge...Dale wrote:I find myself wanting an 8 GB although I have no use for it whatever.
The first hard drive I ever got to use was a 10Meg, and it took three of us to unload it from a truck. Not as big as a refrigerator, but about four feet tall, 24 inches square.
We had a 5 Meg drive at U Cal Berkeley's Mac User Group place with a viewable disk. The disk was about 36" in diameter, gold, with a huge tonearm like magnet reader off to one side, all sitting under this bubble-like plastic cover. Amazing!
"Clapham, like all cities, is built over a volcano." G.K. Chesterton
- Dale
- The Landlord
- Posts: 10293
- Joined: Wed May 16, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Chiff & Fipple's LearJet: DaleForce One
- Contact:
Re: The 5MB Double-Wide Refrigerator
My first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer.lenf wrote:I quite remember building an 8K expansion board for my first computer. The board was about 20" square, used 58 chips, all in handwired sockets. I knew I'd never need the total 16K, which was cutting edge...Dale wrote:I find myself wanting an 8 GB although I have no use for it whatever.
The first hard drive I ever got to use was a 10Meg, and it took three of us to unload it from a truck. Not as big as a refrigerator, but about four feet tall, 24 inches square.
We had a 5 Meg drive at U Cal Berkeley's Mac User Group place with a viewable disk. The disk was about 36" in diameter, gold, with a huge tonearm like magnet reader off to one side, all sitting under this bubble-like plastic cover. Amazing!
No disc drive. Not even a floppy. i/o was achieved through a cassette recorder and a patch cord. Hooked up to TV set. I think it shipped with 8k ram and I added chips to bring it up to 16 and them maybe later 32k.
THe first printer I owned printed on thermal paper that was about two inches across. Came in rolls like an adding machine.
And who can forget dot matrix, tractor feed? I guess those are still around for some specilialized application.
I also owned one of those Atari computers that had a built in MIDI interface. It wasn't bad. Very popular in Europe I understand.
Sigh. I needed a flash drive for ONE assignment in this class I was taking this summer. Had no idea what they were. Unfortunately, the class was only 6 weeks long and that meant there was a test due the day after it started, with a week's worth of work in one night, and I was going to have to spend that evening trying to find a flash drive . . . so I ended up dropping the class.
However, I do have to take this class eventually, so I watched the sales and got a flash drive for free after a rebate.
I discovered how . . . handy . . . it was for toting stuff back and forth to work, so I could work on my what-all at lunch.
I toted a PowerPoint across campus for a training session and felt very cool. Hahahaha! I'm not at the mercy of the network or broken floppy drives anymore!!!!
Then it occurred to me that a slightly larger one would accommodate music.
I kept watching sales. And the prices kept coming down.
And now I have FDAD. It's horrible.
I have a waterproof one now, too. It floats and it bounces. Just in case, you see.
However, I do have to take this class eventually, so I watched the sales and got a flash drive for free after a rebate.
I discovered how . . . handy . . . it was for toting stuff back and forth to work, so I could work on my what-all at lunch.
I toted a PowerPoint across campus for a training session and felt very cool. Hahahaha! I'm not at the mercy of the network or broken floppy drives anymore!!!!
Then it occurred to me that a slightly larger one would accommodate music.
I kept watching sales. And the prices kept coming down.
And now I have FDAD. It's horrible.
I have a waterproof one now, too. It floats and it bounces. Just in case, you see.
- missy
- Posts: 5833
- Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2003 7:46 am
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Cincinnati, OH
- Contact:
I have no idea how much memory it had (it used those big tapes), but the first "big" computer we had at work was a HP1000. We had to have a special, dedicated room built for it that included it's own air conditioner. We had 30 A/D boxes for instrumentation, etc., and maybe 8 or 10 "terminals". My desk was right next to the printer, which sat on the floor. We also had a COLOR printer for graphs that had this little wheel that would pick up each color of pen separately.
- djm
- Posts: 17853
- Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 5:47 am
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Canadia
- Contact:
Called a plotter, and still used in environments where large technical drawings are required.missy wrote:We also had a COLOR printer for graphs that had this little wheel that would pick up each color of pen separately.
My first stand-alone hard drive was 20MB for my Atari ST, and cost over $900. I was broke, but I was major league, baby.
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
- Flyingcursor
- Posts: 6573
- Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: This is the first sentence. This is the second of the recommended sentences intended to thwart spam its. This is a third, bonus sentence!
- Location: Portsmouth, VA1, "the States"
Last year I paid $100 bucks for a 512 flash drive. Imagine my chagrin when I saw them on sale at Office Depot for $14.00 last week.
My first PC was an Apple IIe clone. No hard drive and 512K of RAM.
After that I had an Amiga 500 which was a great PC at the time.
My first PC was an Apple IIe clone. No hard drive and 512K of RAM.
After that I had an Amiga 500 which was a great PC at the time.
I'm no longer trying a new posting paradigm
- Tyler
- Posts: 5816
- Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:51 am
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: I've picked up the tinwhistle again after several years, and have recently purchased a Chieftain v5 from Kerry Whistles that I cannot wait to get (why can't we beam stuff yet, come on Captain Kirk, get me my Low D!)
- Location: SLC, UT and sometimes Delhi, India
- Contact:
My first computer was an Apple IIe also...no HD, but I did have a double floppy drive, heh heh. I was the shiz then...I was the only one on the block that could copy floppys.
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
Until recently, my father to programmed Wang mainframes (that's
the company's name, I swear!). They were pretty old even in the 80's
when I was a kid, but lots of schools were still using them, and he
wrote scheduling software for these old monsters. He used to bring
me into work sometimes, and I loved helping him mount the disk
packs, which looked like this:
You had to drop these into a compartment in a separate (and huge)
disk-reading machine, then crank the handle down to securely mount
them so they could be spun up for access. They were about the size
and weight of the stones used in Olympic curling. When I went to
engineering college in the mid-90's, I saw some disk packs being
used as door stops. Hilarious. I had to call my dad. He said he had
just used some to restore a backup file. Clunky, but reliable!
the company's name, I swear!). They were pretty old even in the 80's
when I was a kid, but lots of schools were still using them, and he
wrote scheduling software for these old monsters. He used to bring
me into work sometimes, and I loved helping him mount the disk
packs, which looked like this:
You had to drop these into a compartment in a separate (and huge)
disk-reading machine, then crank the handle down to securely mount
them so they could be spun up for access. They were about the size
and weight of the stones used in Olympic curling. When I went to
engineering college in the mid-90's, I saw some disk packs being
used as door stops. Hilarious. I had to call my dad. He said he had
just used some to restore a backup file. Clunky, but reliable!
- Jerry Freeman
- Posts: 6074
- Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Location: Now playing in Northeastern Connecticut
- Contact:
- missy
- Posts: 5833
- Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2003 7:46 am
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Cincinnati, OH
- Contact:
We had to use a slide rule in Chemistry, but we were "allowed" to use a calculator in Physics (same teacher - so she knew we knew how to use a slide rule). I got a TI something scientific calculator, and it was about $100. It lasted about 10 years - I think I finally killed it by spilling hexane all over it.Jerry Freeman wrote:I remember when pocket calculators first came out, sometime in the '70s. My father bought one for $100. It had a red LED display, took a nine volt battery and used reverse Polish notation.
- djm
- Posts: 17853
- Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 5:47 am
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Canadia
- Contact:
I think that's the biggest difference between then and now, not the size or speed, but that things were still being made to last. That was a big part of the expense (plus the R&D was still new and waiting to be paid for). I started out with an Apple IIe, then later an Atari ST-1024. Both are still functionable, though not in use. I have gone through at least 10 PCs, all of which have suffered one terminal problem or another.missy wrote:I got a TI something scientific calculator, and it was about $100. It lasted about 10 years - I think I finally killed it by spilling hexane all over it.
So how much have we really saved? Hard to tell, when we don't replace units with same, but are always buying something newer.
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
- Jerry Freeman
- Posts: 6074
- Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Location: Now playing in Northeastern Connecticut
- Contact:
My first read of the title of this thread brought to mind something like:
A new high-tech refrigerator with large food storage capacity that also scans in barcodes and records the date of purchase of all food items stored therein, displays reminders of which foods are likely to be running out based on historic usage patterns, which foods need to be used up soonest to avoid spoilage (also serves as a reminder to purchase more if the food item has already been consumed), generates grocery lists, computes nutritional content of family's eating patterns, suggests foods that might be added for more complete nutrition, etc. (walks the dog, changes diapers, gets the mail ... )
Best wishes,
Jerry
A new high-tech refrigerator with large food storage capacity that also scans in barcodes and records the date of purchase of all food items stored therein, displays reminders of which foods are likely to be running out based on historic usage patterns, which foods need to be used up soonest to avoid spoilage (also serves as a reminder to purchase more if the food item has already been consumed), generates grocery lists, computes nutritional content of family's eating patterns, suggests foods that might be added for more complete nutrition, etc. (walks the dog, changes diapers, gets the mail ... )
Best wishes,
Jerry