19 Dec
2009
19 Dec
'09
6:08 p.m.
Chuck writes:
What we no longer have is convenient inexpensive
storage for modest
amounts of information, say a megabyte or two? Ideally, such a
medium would be read-mostly or write-once and a handful of them would
buy a cup of coffee at your local watering hole.
When I got started in computing, a RK05 pack was circa $200 and
a 8" floppy was circa $5. A researcher or student might have
had a personal RK05 or two and a box of floppies.
Today for the non-inflation-amount of money
I get a couple of Terabyte portable drives for $200 and a cheapie
USB keychain for $5. And they're used for similar purposes (despite
a factor of 5 or more orders of magnuted in byte capacity) as the 30-year
old equivalents. I see things really staying the same in price
and in usage more than changing.
What's really cool, is both the USB keychain and the terabyte
portable drive use the same cheap and ubiquitous low-end interface.
That is an improvement over 30 years ago (don't take that as a slam
against the Unibus, if I wanted to insult the Unibus I would call
it "cheap and ubiquitous" 30 years ago!)
Tim.