Is this real? a 5 MB hard drive by IBM in 1956 weighs that much, in that size?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

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In another 70 years, the future generation of [H] will post a thread scoffing at our big ass, low storage SSDs and cheap 10k desks.
 
I could get having some doubt for 1976, but 1956 ?

Computer could easily take rooms back then, some still used old school vacuum tube:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305_RAMAC

Hard drive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives#IBM_350
It has fifty-two 24-inch (610 mm) diameter disks of which 100 recording surfaces are used,

BRL61-IBM_305_RAMAC.jpg


According to wiki those in that picture were 3.75MB. Maybe the nasa and other movies tend to make it look a bit bigger than it was but taking full room for your not stronger than a regular 90s calculator Ti-80 something computer was a real thing for a long time, that why they changed the name for personal computer for the type regular people could carry around, put in their house and buy with regular money.

If hard drive capacity increased by 22% yearly since 1956 and started at 4mb they would be around 11 TB today (we can found 18-22tb+ now, but that give an idea that with composite increase you can have a good but not crazy rate from back then to now), and they got much smaller as well which is nice, but for a while 22% a year was not that much, it was doubling fast.
 
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Even 1976, not unusual. I mean my first SCSI I(one) drive had 60MB on it and cost about $800 USD. And that was in the early 90's.

I suppose what was amazing was the amount of "computing" we did on machines that might have had 512MB of storage or less and maybe 8MB or less of memory in the 80's.

And... we were doing "great things". In some ways, we were doing far more with far less back then.

Talk to an "old guy" and if he's like me, he will tell you about technology that will make your head spin and ask, "why can't we have stuff like that now?" To which I say, good question.
 
cjcox said:
Even 1976, not unusual.
Click to expand...
For something new... I feel 1 ton for 5mb would have been quite unusual, 500mb small like today compact disc was around to start to be used for computer data, regular 5 inch soft floppy disk were about to happen, the 8 inch floppy disk of the time had a 1MB capacity and weighted little.

You could probably get something in the 20-40 maybe even 60mb range, in a package a single human could move rather easily if on wheels, probably more 100 pound than 2000+, by the end of the decade over 200mb drive were out while being smaller-lighter than those (even if ridiculously big for today).
 
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LukeTbk said:
I could get having some doubt for 1976, but 1956 ?

Computer could easily take rooms back then, some still used old school vacuum tube:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305_RAMAC

Hard drive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives#IBM_350
It has fifty-two 24-inch (610 mm) diameter disks of which 100 recording surfaces are used,

View attachment 610017

According to wiki those in that picture were 3.75MB. Maybe the nasa and other movies tend to make it look a bit bigger than it was but taking full room for your not stronger than a regular 90s calculator Ti-80 something computer was a real thing for a long time, that why they changed the name for personal computer for the type regular people could carry around, put in their house and buy with regular money.

If hard drive capacity increased by 22% yearly since 1956 and started at 4mb they would be around 11 TB today (we can found 18-22tb+ now), and they got much smaller as well which is nice, but for a while 22% a year was not that much, it was doubling fast.
Click to expand...
When I was in college.we had an IBM 360/50 mainframe. Lots of cabinets. Tape drives, disk drives, card reader, printer. Operator console had lots of blinking lights and toggle switches.

OK, I'm dating myself. Back in 1980, I hooked up at 10 MB SCSI drive to my Xerox 820 PC (Z80) runnng CP/M.
 
LukeTbk said:
For something new... I feel 1 ton for 5mb would have been quite unusual, 500mb small like today compact disc was around to start to be used for computer data, regular 5 inch soft floppy disk were about to happen, the 8 inch floppy disk of the time had a 1MB capacity and weighted little.

You could probably get something in the 20-40 maybe even 60mb range, in a package a single human could move rather easily if on wheels, probably more 100 pound than 2000+.
Click to expand...
Disk packs. Definitely smaller and lighter. Not sure when they reached 5MB.
 
LukeTbk said:
I could get having some doubt for 1976, but 1956 ?

Computer could easily take rooms back then, some still used old school vacuum tube:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305_RAMAC

Hard drive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives#IBM_350
It has fifty-two 24-inch (610 mm) diameter disks of which 100 recording surfaces are used,

View attachment 610017

According to wiki those in that picture were 3.75MB. Maybe the nasa and other movies tend to make it look a bit bigger than it was but taking full room for your not stronger than a regular 90s calculator Ti-80 something computer was a real thing for a long time, that why they changed the name for personal computer for the type regular people could carry around, put in their house and buy with regular money.

If hard drive capacity increased by 22% yearly since 1956 and started at 4mb they would be around 11 TB today (we can found 18-22tb+ now, but that give an idea that with composite increase you can have a good but not crazy rate from back then to now), and they got much smaller as well which is nice, but for a while 22% a year was not that much, it was doubling fast.
Click to expand...
Were the "nerd" glasses mandatory then or just an a aesthetic choice?
Regardless it make's the pic authentic.
What's a future pic of our time to show?
 
funkydmunky said:
Were the "nerd" glasses mandatory then or just an a aesthetic choice?
Regardless it make's the pic authentic.
What's a future pic of our time to show?
Click to expand...
Future pic? Well, probably zero people and just one of the new ultra high speed MicroSD cards.

At least then.... people.... if people are important.
 
I remember there is a large PC dealer in town that went belly up in the 1990s, and I bought this full height 5.25" hard drive, at an absurd $60 brand new. Back then, I never seen full height hard drive before, that's 2 x 5.25" bay size, like 2 x CD-ROM drive size together from Seagate. Put an local ad. for $1K, sold it for $500.
 
but going back to that photo, what did IBM put inside that box? how can it be that big back then? what exactly is the material used back then? Today we use vacuum sealed platter, what was it back then that sucks up so much space?
 
Happy Hopping said:
but going back to that photo, what did IBM put inside that box? how can it be that big back then? what exactly is the material used back then? Today we use vacuum sealed platter, what was it back then that sucks up so much space?
Click to expand...
52 x 60 cm disk that can be read-write in both side.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/10/8b/1b/176f8f35127e37/US3503060.pdf

With a big mechanism with belt to move the head in between the active surface (of 2 different disk, the top of one and the bottom of the next one), big engine and polley to make them turn up too 1200 rpm
 
Happy Hopping said:
but going back to that photo, what did IBM put inside that box? how can it be that big back then? what exactly is the material used back then? Today we use vacuum sealed platter, what was it back then that sucks up so much space?
Click to expand...

Lots and lots of bunnies on treadmills in that thing I would imagine.
 
Oh is that thre one delivered to Norwich City Council in the UK? If so I walk past that double door most weeks.
 
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