6 ms·

Am I the only one that fantasizes going back in time and bragging about such things like having a consumer-affordable 1TB removable storage device the size of a

by jolmg 7y ago

Am I the only one that fantasizes going back in time and bragging about such things like having a consumer-affordable 1TB removable storage device the size of a thumbnail in my personal and cheap super-powerful computer that's comfortably in my pocket? How much would people in the past pay to even glance at or gasp touch such a marvelous thing?

mywittyname 7y ago
I'd love even a cheap modern SSD in my machine ~15 years ago. I remember thinking I was hot shit with my raided pair of 74gb Raptor drives.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  I thought I was hot shit for having 10k rpm Seagate Cheetah SCSI drives, Ultra 2 Wide, with 5ms seek times. 9gb was enough for anybody back then.
  - jerrysievert 7y ago
    i remember working at the OSDL in 2001/2002 and being amazed that we had a whole terabyte spinning.
nabla9 7y ago
Top supercomputer in 2000 was ASCI Red. It 2000 had 1.2 TB memory and 1 Tflop computing capacity. High end smartphone in your pocket would be basically ASCI Red. Worth $67 million in real dollars.
- jolmg 7y ago
  Memory sounds like RAM / volatile memory. Is that really storage / non-volatile memory? EDIT: From looking at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110926225845/http://www.sandia.gov/ASCI/Red/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110926225845/http://www.sandia... It's RAM. Storage is at 12TB. 1.2TB of RAM... I think we still have a ways to go before our phones can do that.
  - cbm-vic-20 7y ago
    There's more computational power and storage than that in the pockets of the passengers of a city bus.
    - jolmg 7y ago
      My phone has 2GB of RAM. That bus would need 500 such phones in the pockets of passengers to have the around same amount of RAM. Storage-wise, I have ~140GB total storage. I think that's above average, but that bus would still need around 100 such phones. I don't know how the buses are in your city. In mine, even when people are packed like sardines, I don't think we get near those numbers.
      - cesarb 7y ago
        A ferry, then. The ferry in my city carries 2000 passengers when it's full (and it's always full in the rush hour, with one ferry leaving every 10 minutes). Assuming every passenger has a phone, and each phone has only 2GB of RAM, it's already around the 4TB mark.
      - jandrese 7y ago
        Your phone is old and behind the times. That said your numbers are still roughly correct. I don't think you can reasonably fit 200 people in a city bus, even one of those English double decker busses.
        toyg 7y ago
        Medium-sized city buses can hold about 40-50 people, double-deckers go just above 100 if i remember correctly, but nowhere near 150.
smacktoward 7y ago
Good news! The manufacturers of those computers have all acted to prevent such time-travel shenanigans by taking away the option to add removable storage from all their devices. (At least, I assume that's the reason they stopped allowing removable storage. Some people argue that it was just a way for them to squeeze out extra profit by forcing you to pay them if you wanted extra storage, but that's crazy talk.)
- Latty 7y ago
  The excuse I've seen most of them use is that users buy the cheapest possible SD cards, then when they are slow they blame the phone for being slow. That and an SD card slot is an extra weak point to waterproof etc... I'm assuming it's mostly just about giving an easy way to do price discrimination as you imply, but I can see those actually being real issues too.
  - toyg 7y ago
    It’s also a relatively big slot in ever-thinner devices where even a slim sound jack is “too bulky” nowadays.
  - chaoticmass 7y ago
    Also waterproofing is easier without the slot.
    - cesarb 7y ago
      Isn't the slot needed for the SIM anyway? Many pbones seem to combine both the SIM(s) and the microSD in a single removable tray.
      - chaoticmass 7y ago
        I didn't think about that. In that case, it's probably just planned obsolescence.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jerf 7y ago
I've often pondered getting stuck back in the 1960s or something with my cell phone, and the astonishing uselessness it would have. It would be feasible at the time to isolate the battery and directly power the rest of the device, but... then what? No internet, no wireless, no mechanism for input or output... it wouldn't be quite useless, but it's not all that useful. Now, send me back with my laptop and it's a completely different story. I've got enough development stuff on that to make serious dough. It would be really weird... probably the fastest communication mechanisms we'd have are using the speaker for modem-based communication, and using the webcam to scan in incoming data somehow, since nothing in that era can even say "hello" to any port I currently have, but we'd be able to get somewhere.
- pilsetnieks 7y ago
  RS-232 was introduced in 1960, so you're just a USB dongle away from communicating with many devices.
  - jerf 7y ago
    In my hypothetical, I was surprised by my sudden time displacement. If I'm prepared, well, like I said, I'd be taking my laptop and conventional computers, not my cell phone per se. Also my cell phone backed up by computers is more useful anyhow. With care and preparation I've got all sorts of options, even going back farther than the 1960s; push comes to shove I can bring solar cells and my own printing press or something, etc.
- jolmg 7y ago
  > It would be feasible at the time to isolate the battery and directly power the rest of the device Or take a portable solar charger with you. > but... then what? No internet, no wireless, no mechanism for input or output... it wouldn't be quite useless, but it's not all that useful. It can hold a gigantic amount of invaluable information. English Wikipedia as an HTML dump seems to be just 15GB[1]. I think that includes images. All OSM planetary map data seems to be storable in 45GB[2]. If only all knowledge was as accessible. [1] https://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/static_html_dumps/current/en/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/static_html_dumps/current/... [2] https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ https://planet.openstreetmap.org/
somecallitblues 7y ago
I wouldn’t stick my hand in your pocket! :)

by jolmg 7y ago

mywittyname 7y ago

I'd love even a cheap modern SSD in my machine ~15 years ago. I remember thinking I was hot shit with my raided pair of 74gb Raptor drives.

JudgeWapner 7y ago
I thought I was hot shit for having 10k rpm Seagate Cheetah SCSI drives, Ultra 2 Wide, with 5ms seek times. 9gb was enough for anybody back then.
- jerrysievert 7y ago
  i remember working at the OSDL in 2001/2002 and being amazed that we had a whole terabyte spinning.

nabla9 7y ago

Top supercomputer in 2000 was ASCI Red. It 2000 had 1.2 TB memory and 1 Tflop computing capacity. High end smartphone in your pocket would be basically ASCI Red. Worth $67 million in real dollars.

jolmg 7y ago
Memory sounds like RAM / volatile memory. Is that really storage / non-volatile memory? EDIT: From looking at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110926225845/http://www.sandia.gov/ASCI/Red/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110926225845/http://www.sandia... It's RAM. Storage is at 12TB. 1.2TB of RAM... I think we still have a ways to go before our phones can do that.
- cbm-vic-20 7y ago
  There's more computational power and storage than that in the pockets of the passengers of a city bus.
  - jolmg 7y ago
    My phone has 2GB of RAM. That bus would need 500 such phones in the pockets of passengers to have the around same amount of RAM. Storage-wise, I have ~140GB total storage. I think that's above average, but that bus would still need around 100 such phones. I don't know how the buses are in your city. In mine, even when people are packed like sardines, I don't think we get near those numbers.
    - cesarb 7y ago
      A ferry, then. The ferry in my city carries 2000 passengers when it's full (and it's always full in the rush hour, with one ferry leaving every 10 minutes). Assuming every passenger has a phone, and each phone has only 2GB of RAM, it's already around the 4TB mark.
    - jandrese 7y ago
      Your phone is old and behind the times. That said your numbers are still roughly correct. I don't think you can reasonably fit 200 people in a city bus, even one of those English double decker busses.
      - toyg 7y ago
        Medium-sized city buses can hold about 40-50 people, double-deckers go just above 100 if i remember correctly, but nowhere near 150.

smacktoward 7y ago

Good news! The manufacturers of those computers have all acted to prevent such time-travel shenanigans by taking away the option to add removable storage from all their devices. (At least, I assume that's the reason they stopped allowing removable storage. Some people argue that it was just a way for them to squeeze out extra profit by forcing you to pay them if you wanted extra storage, but that's crazy talk.)

Latty 7y ago
The excuse I've seen most of them use is that users buy the cheapest possible SD cards, then when they are slow they blame the phone for being slow. That and an SD card slot is an extra weak point to waterproof etc... I'm assuming it's mostly just about giving an easy way to do price discrimination as you imply, but I can see those actually being real issues too.
- toyg 7y ago
  It’s also a relatively big slot in ever-thinner devices where even a slim sound jack is “too bulky” nowadays.
- chaoticmass 7y ago
  Also waterproofing is easier without the slot.
  - cesarb 7y ago
    Isn't the slot needed for the SIM anyway? Many pbones seem to combine both the SIM(s) and the microSD in a single removable tray.
    - chaoticmass 7y ago
      I didn't think about that. In that case, it's probably just planned obsolescence.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jerf 7y ago

I've often pondered getting stuck back in the 1960s or something with my cell phone, and the astonishing uselessness it would have. It would be feasible at the time to isolate the battery and directly power the rest of the device, but... then what? No internet, no wireless, no mechanism for input or output... it wouldn't be quite useless, but it's not all that useful. Now, send me back with my laptop and it's a completely different story. I've got enough development stuff on that to make serious dough. It would be really weird... probably the fastest communication mechanisms we'd have are using the speaker for modem-based communication, and using the webcam to scan in incoming data somehow, since nothing in that era can even say "hello" to any port I currently have, but we'd be able to get somewhere.

pilsetnieks 7y ago
RS-232 was introduced in 1960, so you're just a USB dongle away from communicating with many devices.
- jerf 7y ago
  In my hypothetical, I was surprised by my sudden time displacement. If I'm prepared, well, like I said, I'd be taking my laptop and conventional computers, not my cell phone per se. Also my cell phone backed up by computers is more useful anyhow. With care and preparation I've got all sorts of options, even going back farther than the 1960s; push comes to shove I can bring solar cells and my own printing press or something, etc.
jolmg 7y ago
> It would be feasible at the time to isolate the battery and directly power the rest of the device Or take a portable solar charger with you. > but... then what? No internet, no wireless, no mechanism for input or output... it wouldn't be quite useless, but it's not all that useful. It can hold a gigantic amount of invaluable information. English Wikipedia as an HTML dump seems to be just 15GB[1]. I think that includes images. All OSM planetary map data seems to be storable in 45GB[2]. If only all knowledge was as accessible. [1] https://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/static_html_dumps/current/en/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/static_html_dumps/current/... [2] https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ https://planet.openstreetmap.org/

somecallitblues 7y ago

I wouldn’t stick my hand in your pocket! :)