5 ms·

"The total amount of information stored on its 50 spinning iron-oxide-coated disks--each of them a pizza-size 24 inches--was 5 megabytes. That's not quite enoug

"The total amount of information stored on its 50 spinning iron-oxide-coated disks--each of them a pizza-size 24 inches--was 5 megabytes. That's not quite enough to hold two MP3 copies of Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog."" So maybe a dumb question... what were they doing with that thing back in 1956? That's such a small amount of data in such a large space, was this actually used to do anything useful after it was sold?

Turing_Machine 4y ago
Don't think of it as two MP3s. Think of it as 25-30 book-length volumes of text. That was plenty to handle payroll, inventory, sales, etc. for a business, especially since the data model back then was to only keep current, live data on the disk, while archiving old data off on tapes.
- xtracto 4y ago
  Also, reading from the article they are mentioning that there was already tape storage (non random access). I can imagine that the 5MB random access disks were using as "working memory" and then results where still stored in tape.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    Definitely. "Batch processing" often involved reading the data off one tape into the CPU, processing it, then writing it back out onto another tape. "Computer operators" basically did nothing but load the proper tapes onto the drives at the proper times (plus replacing printer consumables, etc.).
    - mech422 4y ago
      Those were the 'I/O operators' where I worked... the 'system operators' (computer operators) were the guys that got the big bucks to alter jcl and drink coffee :-P I also worked at places with dedicated 'print pool' operators, that basically fed paper into printers/bursters/collators/binders.
xtracto 4y ago
My first computer with a hard disk was 10MB. You could store the operating system (MSDOS 5) and several programs (I remember Professional Write and QPRO. Not only that, but you could even store games. Prince of Persia was available in 2 floppies (5 1/4") with 720KB each one. You could store the whole game in the hard disk as well... This was around 1990. In 1956, 5MB was plent of storage.
- tengwar2 4y ago
  Back in the early 90's, the first computer that I owned was a Psion 3 PDA with 256kB of battery-backed RAM, which was shared automatically between "disk" and working memory. Applications were held in ROM. On one occasion I needed to prepare a church address list. I entered the contact details in to a new contacts list (actually a simple flat-file database), exported to the spreadsheet to sort them, then exported to the word processor for formatting and printing. Not only was it possible, but it was easy. So yes, 5MB was a lot.
kube-system 4y ago
Very successful graphing calculators have main storage measured in kilobytes. You aren’t running npm install on these machines, you’re mostly working with numbers.
tpmx 4y ago
https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/ramac/ https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/ramac/ Before RAMAC, information had to be entered by running a stack of cards through a punched card machine, and answers would arrive in hours or days. RAMAC could find data in seconds, alter it, and move on to find a completely different piece of data. It let enterprises think about data in new ways, mixing and matching it on the fly. Random access made the relational database possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database#1960s,_navigational_DBMS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database#1960s,_navigational_D... The introduction of the term database coincided with the availability of direct-access storage (disks and drums) from the mid-1960s onwards. The term represented a contrast with the tape-based systems of the past, allowing shared interactive use rather than daily batch processing.
biggieshellz 4y ago
It replaced a tub file (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tub_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tub_file), where workers would pull individual cards by hand.
tresqotheq 4y ago
michaelbuckbee 4y ago
It's not a dumb question. Consider the value in moving calculations from paper to a spreadsheet. That's _about_ what it was like in the early computing days in terms of overall amount of data and the types of general processing that were done with it. Incredibly useful but only applicable to a narrow range of tasks.
- tresqotheq 4y ago
  - yesenadam 4y ago
    Hi. You seem new to HN, and have already written a few such comments. Don't do that here, thanks. Please read the "In comments" section of the guidelines, which starts with "Be kind." Thanks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bluedino 4y ago
Some of the first personal computers only came with 4k of memory
mixmastamyk 4y ago
No, video, no audio. Decent amount of storage for text/data files. Offload the old ones to tape. Make do with what’s available.
kps 4y ago
It's the equivalent of 36 feet of punch cards. That's a lot of storage.
kjs3 4y ago
Built IBM into a global power. Went to the moon. Stuff like that.

Turing_Machine 4y ago

Don't think of it as two MP3s. Think of it as 25-30 book-length volumes of text. That was plenty to handle payroll, inventory, sales, etc. for a business, especially since the data model back then was to only keep current, live data on the disk, while archiving old data off on tapes.

xtracto 4y ago
Also, reading from the article they are mentioning that there was already tape storage (non random access). I can imagine that the 5MB random access disks were using as "working memory" and then results where still stored in tape.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  Definitely. "Batch processing" often involved reading the data off one tape into the CPU, processing it, then writing it back out onto another tape. "Computer operators" basically did nothing but load the proper tapes onto the drives at the proper times (plus replacing printer consumables, etc.).
  - mech422 4y ago
    Those were the 'I/O operators' where I worked... the 'system operators' (computer operators) were the guys that got the big bucks to alter jcl and drink coffee :-P I also worked at places with dedicated 'print pool' operators, that basically fed paper into printers/bursters/collators/binders.

xtracto 4y ago

My first computer with a hard disk was 10MB. You could store the operating system (MSDOS 5) and several programs (I remember Professional Write and QPRO. Not only that, but you could even store games. Prince of Persia was available in 2 floppies (5 1/4") with 720KB each one. You could store the whole game in the hard disk as well... This was around 1990. In 1956, 5MB was plent of storage.

tengwar2 4y ago
Back in the early 90's, the first computer that I owned was a Psion 3 PDA with 256kB of battery-backed RAM, which was shared automatically between "disk" and working memory. Applications were held in ROM. On one occasion I needed to prepare a church address list. I entered the contact details in to a new contacts list (actually a simple flat-file database), exported to the spreadsheet to sort them, then exported to the word processor for formatting and printing. Not only was it possible, but it was easy. So yes, 5MB was a lot.

kube-system 4y ago

Very successful graphing calculators have main storage measured in kilobytes. You aren’t running npm install on these machines, you’re mostly working with numbers.

tpmx 4y ago

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/ramac/ https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/ramac/ Before RAMAC, information had to be entered by running a stack of cards through a punched card machine, and answers would arrive in hours or days. RAMAC could find data in seconds, alter it, and move on to find a completely different piece of data. It let enterprises think about data in new ways, mixing and matching it on the fly. Random access made the relational database possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database#1960s,_navigational_DBMS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database#1960s,_navigational_D... The introduction of the term database coincided with the availability of direct-access storage (disks and drums) from the mid-1960s onwards. The term represented a contrast with the tape-based systems of the past, allowing shared interactive use rather than daily batch processing.

biggieshellz 4y ago

It replaced a tub file (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tub_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tub_file), where workers would pull individual cards by hand.

tresqotheq 4y ago

michaelbuckbee 4y ago

It's not a dumb question. Consider the value in moving calculations from paper to a spreadsheet. That's _about_ what it was like in the early computing days in terms of overall amount of data and the types of general processing that were done with it. Incredibly useful but only applicable to a narrow range of tasks.

tresqotheq 4y ago
- yesenadam 4y ago
  Hi. You seem new to HN, and have already written a few such comments. Don't do that here, thanks. Please read the "In comments" section of the guidelines, which starts with "Be kind." Thanks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bluedino 4y ago

Some of the first personal computers only came with 4k of memory

mixmastamyk 4y ago

No, video, no audio. Decent amount of storage for text/data files. Offload the old ones to tape. Make do with what’s available.

kps 4y ago

It's the equivalent of 36 feet of punch cards. That's a lot of storage.

kjs3 4y ago

Built IBM into a global power. Went to the moon. Stuff like that.