"A brief history of the hard drive" - great article

[Omaroo]

I came across this on ComputerWorld this morning - an interesting article called "Computer History Museum to highlight storage, from RAMAC to microdrives."

Having joined IBM as a hardware engineer in 1980, I saw these developments first-hand and was intrinsically involved in the development and deployment of newer hard drive systems with IBM. I started off being trained on IBM's 3340, the first of the "Winchester" disk subsystems - with combined platter capacities of about 280Mb per removable pack. The 8-inch floppy had just been introduced.

What a ride. I love the fact that I was there to see it all.

For those of you interested...enjoy! :)

The complete article, which is really worth the read is here: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9201519/Computer_History_Museum_to_highligh t_storage_from_RAMAC_to_microdrives

[supernova1965]

Your post reminded me of this picture of a Hard Drive. I love this picture

[gary]

Hi Chris,

Happy New Year and thanks for the link to the article.

A few years back I had read a story in one of the professional journals where
it quoted the late Al Shugart, who had also worked on the 305 and eventually went
on to co-found and run a little company called Seagate, as describing the disk drive
business as the "toughest business in the world".

With the relentless push for higher and higher capacities in smaller form
factors but with higher rotational speeds at ever decreasing prices, it certainly
would be an incredibly tough business even today, despite the world's insatiable
demand for storage.

A couple of decades ago I remember the group I was with having parting drinks
at the pub for a co-worker who was heading off to Colorado Springs to join
a start-up called Ramtron. There were high hopes that F-RAM would bring
an end to hard drives, but we are still waiting. :)

And before that there was Bubble Memory. I remember Intel, among others, ploughed
an enormous amount of time and money into it. I got to use one on an Intel
development system for a processor they spent even more money on called the
iAPX-432, a 32-bit processor that was meant to succeed the 8080, but that
is another story. :)

The only recollections of these are now stored in biological memory. :)

[snowyskiesau]

Brought back a few memories of servicing those beasts for UNIVAC!
Removable 19" diameter disk packs, 6 platters with a massive total of 256MB although 45/90MB was more common. Head alignment was a long term process, you had to acclimatise the test packs for a couple of days before you could even start. and always done on a weekend, late at night as the hardware couldn't be out of service during normal hours.

I actually just got rid of some cases that were used to ship alignment disk packs around the country. Hopefully they'll be re-birthed as cases for astronomy mounts ;)

And while we're reminiscing, let's not forget drum memory and line printers with power supplies that needed a forklift to change.:lol:

God, I'm old :sadeyes:

[cfranks]

I too was an IBM engineer, started in 1964 so I worked in this HDD, known as the 1405. Maximum capacity was 4MB. I think I could still probably fix one today!

Charles

[supernova1965]

And you could have worked IN this HDD:rofl::rofl:

[Omaroo]

Golly, your name rings a bell Charles. You may have known my father, Alec. He too was an IBMer, joining in the fifties and mainly based in Sydney. We travelled the world with him and IBM. Great days. It ran in the family.

[issdaol]

Gee...You guys are really old geezers :D.

Now I feel better about my moaning the other day about being in IT for too long :drink:.

IBM now gives out Blue LED torches to new recruits and a USB Memory Stick Pen with Blue LED light in it :lol:.

Cheers

[BrisGreg]

Well we're all coming out of the woodwork. My first job was on a univac 9400. Well we remember when those hydraulic head assemblies on the disk drives used to leave puddles of fluid on the floor while they franticly tried to recalibrate themseleves. Thems was the days. And oh those magnificent tape drives!!

[supernova1965]

I thought that the UNIVAC was from the JETSONS:rofl::P you know the one George always was fighting with:bashcomp::fight: