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Ramac : The real first disk drive? (Was: Floppy disk (fwd)

by Fred Cisin

Didn't show up on the list, so re-sending it: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:14:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> Subject: [cctalk] Ramac : The real first disk drive? (Was: Floppy disk The first known and recognized disk drive of ANY type (hard disk preceded floppy) was the Ramac, 70 years ago, 1956 https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/first-commercial-hard-disk-dr… First one shipped was to Crown-Zellerbach Paper Company CHM says June; EDN and Google AI (Gemini) say September 13, 1956 https://www.edn.com/ibm-intros-1st-computer-disk-storage-unit-september-13-… But, Gemini seems to also hallucinate RAMAC as being a company! "At the 1958 Worlds Fair, RAMAC showcased its revolutionary random-access capabilities by answering world history questions in 10 different languages." (There was no Ramac Company exhibiting at the 1958 Worlds Fair) Ramac had fifty 2 foot diameter double sided platters, and could hold a total of about 5MB. Modern drives can have even higher density! I have a crashed Ramac platter, that I have made into a patio table, with the platter under glass. In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev visited USA for 12 days, to try to calm the cold war a bit. On September 19, 1959, he tried to visit Disneyland, State Department and Disneyland consulted with each other, and they would not let him go to disneyland! Khrushchev was angry about that: "What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken over the place that can destroy me?" Frank Sinatra hosted a massive celebrity lunch for him at 20th Century Fox Studios, attended by Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine, Gary Cooper, etc. When Nina Khrushchev expressed her disappointment about Disneyland, Sinatra said to David Niven, "Hmm, tell the old broad that WE will sneak them in". Apparently that visit didn't happen, or was very sneaky. I remember a New Yorker cartoon that showed a soviet sub surfacing off-shore to sneak him in. Y'know, if they hadn't banned them from Disneyland, the entire Cuban missile crisis would have been a lot less hostile! To make up for not letting him go to Disneyland, the State Department, on September 21, 1959, took him to San Jose, to tour IBM's facility, and see Ramac. S'posedly, Khrushchev was more impressed by the operation and efficiency of the company self service cafeteria, than by Ramac. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

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HN482764G EPROMS

by Mike Katz

Does anyone have any HN482764G or other 250nS or faster 2764 EPROMs they can let go of inexpensively? I could use 4 or 5. I will generate the shipping label from here so you don't have to worry about the shipping costs. Thank you, Mike

1 month, 2 weeks

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Polymorphic Computer Documentation

by Marvin Johnston

In trying to make some Polymorphic docs available to a larger (but probably still small) group of people, one thing I have is a LOT of Polymorphic documentation/manuals. This all came from Polymorphic Systems after they shut down here in Santa Barbara. and is arranged by part # in folders in about three or four file cabinet drawers. While I haven't counted them, a WAG is probably around 100 or so manuals, each with a printed out manual and some (most?) have a floppy disk with the manual on them. Years ago, I had some uneducated person say these couldn't be original manuals since none of them have any pictures or graphics (that someone hadn't heard of cut and paste back when these manuals were put together.) I don't recall any graphics in the manuals, but it has been a LONG time since Ive looked at them so I could be wrong about that. If anyone needs a copy of a Polymorphic manual, let me know that part number and I'll see if I have it. I have a 600 dpi scanner and it is fairly easy to make copies. The 5 1/4" disks are probably around 50 years old, and I have no idea if they are still readable. Among all this stuff is about 20 assembly floor manuals I have looked at, but not done anything with. This is more stuff I would like to get scanned to avoid it being lost to posterity. Included in them are mods to the computer boards. Part of the motivation to do this was a post by Sellam (founder of VCF) a while ago talking about people passing away with potentially a lot of irreplaceable or uncommon stuff in their possession (I'm currently 80.) Normally I would bring some of this stuff to VCFMW, but I couldn't get a room at the convention hotel since they were apparently sold out, and thus I won't be attending this year.

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Floppy disk

by Murray McCullough

54 years ago the 8 inch floppy came into existence. It can be said it helped to make micr-computing possible. Happy computing. Murray 🙂

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OS/2 1.x question

by georgijgalcev1570＠gmail.com

Hello everyone. I am documenting early OS/2 releases (before 1992). I am interested in all possible information about the released versions, photos of media, screenshots. There is very little on the internet. For example, there is very little information about OEM versions of MS OS/2 1.x, as well as little information about OS/2 1.X localizations. if you are the owner of the package/disks of versions 1.x, please let me know. Best.regards. –Georg

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Fwd: OS/2 documentation and software

by Mark Waterbury

Georgi, I saw your post on CCTALK about OS/2 history and early versions. There are many resources available on archive.org. See: https://archive.org/search?tab=texts&query=ibm+os2&page=2 and https://archive.org/search?tab=software&query=ibm+os2 (You can do similar searches replacing "ibm" with "microsoft" in the above.) I hope this helps? All the best, Mark S. Waterbury

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Re: Ramac : The real first disk drive? (Was: Floppy disk (fwd)

by info＠punchcardarchive.com

FWIW, the CHM has a working RAMAC disk and head system. Controlled by PC.

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Re: OS/2 1.x question

by David Schmidt

The Virtual OS museum has MS and IBM OS/2 versions listed pretty comprehensively (which you can of course run locally): https://virtualosmuseum.org/installation-list/ It includes some Citrix versions that OEM the main providers, too. I have a couple of IBM OS/2 boxes (1.1 and maybe 1.2, I think) that I can snap pictures of media from if you're interested; but there are probably places like the Internet Archive that already have such things: https://archive.org/details/ibm-os2-1.00-extended-edition-3.5-1.44mb - David On Mon, 08 Jun 2026 03:05:56 <georgijgalcev1570(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone. > > I am documenting early OS/2 releases (before 1992). > I am interested in all possible information about the released versions, photos of media, screenshots. > There is very little on the internet. For example, there is very little information about OEM versions of MS OS/2 1.x, as well as little information about OS/2 1.X localizations. > > if you are the owner of the package/disks of versions 1.x, please let me know. > > Best.regards. > –Georg

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Lee Felsenstein livestream Sun. June 14 at 1PM (Eastern)

by Jeffrey Brace

Lee Felsenstein livestream Sun. June 14 at 1PM (Eastern): https://youtube.com/live/Js6R3OIxiKY Before the laptop, before Apple took off, there was Lee Felsenstein. As the legendary moderator of the Homebrew Computer Club and designer of the Osborne 1 (the first commercial mass-produced portable computer), he didn't just build the tools—he changed the rules. Don't miss our exclusive livestream with a true PC pioneer this Sunday June 14 at 1PM (Eastern)! Take care! Jeff Brace VCF East Showrunner

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Re: Need Otrona Attache 8:16 MS-DOS Disk

by Robert Feldman

Georgy, One of the software disks that came with my 8:16, which I purchased in March of 1984, has a printed label saying (with the "d" after 2.1.1 hand written in blue ink): <quote> ATTACHE MSDOS REVISION: 2.1.1d SN 1850 48 TPI Date: 02/29/84 </quote> Volume 5, Number 1 (Spring 1985) of "Where It's Att. Official Newsletter of the First Attache/2001 User Group" lists the "Newest" FAUG Library disk as "Attache MS-Dos 2.11e(x) System Disk FAUG211e(x). The latest 'unreleased' Otrona 8:16 master disk for MS-Dos. About to come out when bankruptcy hit Otrona." That same issue says that RAMDISK.SYS works only with 2.11e(x) and not with earlier versions. Issue 5, Number 2 says that "211e(x)" "Includes extensive new hard disk software." Regards, Bob P.S. to Fred: My apologies for not knowing offhand if the MS-DOS version is "two eleven e (x)" or "two one one e (x)". When I get my 8:16 running, I can check. Bob >Message: 12 >Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2026 12:09:28 +0700 >From: Georgy Galtsev <georgijgalcev1570(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: Need Otrona Attache 8:16 MS-DOS Disk > >in fact, the version from the Don Maslin archive labels itself as 2.11, >without additional letters. Where does the information about 2.11d and >2.11e come from? <snip>

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