6 ms·
Technically that's correct, but a bit misleading. You need to bear in mind how limited disk storage was in the 70s and early 80s. When I got to AM systems were
by zanethomas 5y ago
Technically that's correct, but a bit misleading.
You need to bear in mind how limited disk storage was in the 70s and early 80s. When I got to AM systems were booting from 8" floppy disks. That gave you about 500kb, iirc.
The file system had "directories" in this form:
[nnn,nnn]
Where, again iirc, nnn was 8 bits, so 11 111 111, 377 for example. Only 16 bits were required to specify the location of a file.
Filenames, btw, were six characters.
- ZWoz 5y agoYour description ([nnn,nnn]) reminded me TOPS-10 and indeed, that AMOS link mentions this: "The similarities with DEC's operating systems, particularly TOPS-10, were not lost on Digital Equipment Corporation". So, that file hierarchy model is even earlier, than 70s and 80s. Wikipedia says that TOPS-10 was released in 1967 (back then different name, renamed in 1970). DECsystem-10 was anyway pretty different hardware from modern computer, running from tapes and so on. Sorry for that offtopic rambling, I am little bit enthusiastic every time, if I see something TOPS10 related.
- zanethomas 5y agoiirc (so many years) AMOS was based on DEC's RSTS hence a lawsuit which AM eventually won the western digital chipset that powered the first am systems was a five-chip 40-pin set connected by a private cmos bus ... probing with a scope was amusing the instruction set was basically identical to the pdp-11
- kingcharles 5y agoThat's a good point. I don't really remember bothering with directories on any of my 360kb 5.25" floppies in the 80s. When you can only fit 10 files on a disc a hierarchy is usually unwarranted. You hierarchy is those little plastic dividers in your floppy disc storage box.