14 Sep
2007
14 Sep
'07
9:51 p.m.
Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
I often wonder about the process that lead to the design of the drive. I can
picture a couple of engineers sitting mulling over the problem over a few
beers, trying to get more capacity out of their disks. One gets up to go and
get a round in, and decides to go stick something on the jukebox...
We were having a similar discussion on the list a couple of years ago:
******* BEGIN OLD MSG *********
Subject: Re: data stored in moving rust, was Re: Remembering RAMAC
Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 11:12:56 -0700
From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Eric Smith wrote:
>
> Tom wrote:
> > Hand-wave -- it was obvious.
>
> In hindsight it looks obvious. I'm not convinced that it was
> obvious 50 years ago.
I can imagine a couple of engineers in the 1950s hanging out at the diner for
lunch and discussing "we need something with capabilities similar to drums
but with a lot more storage capacity".
One of the engineers gets up from his seat and puts a nickel in the jukebox,
and watches the tone-arm move amongst the stack of disc records...
******* END OLD MSG *********
It's also interesting to note that audio recording went through the same
transition: starting out on drums (cylinders) and then moving to discs.