4 ms·

Never ceases to produce a sense of amazement in me when I see something that reminds me of the ever on-going dynamic of size-inflation/price-deflation in storag

Never ceases to produce a sense of amazement in me when I see something that reminds me of the ever on-going dynamic of size-inflation/price-deflation in storage. I am dating myself but I can still remember what an amazing thing it was when my school got a 10MB Winchester hard drive (external -- about as big as a laser printer). Of course, at that time the only long-term storage I had any experience with was 5.25" floppies with somewhere between 256K and 512K storage, I cannot recall for sure.

deadbunny 4y ago
I remember my parents upgrading from their 386 with a 20mb HDD to a 486 with a 400mb drive and thinking we would never fill it.
pmoriarty 4y ago
Yeah, I remember seeing my first 20 MB hard drive in a computer magazine advertisement. That fantastic piece of kit cost something like $2000. Definitely way, way out of the price range of a hobbyist kid like me, who was still using 5.25" floppies[1] and later upgraded to the 3.5" floppies when I got an Amiga. Also, a bit earlier but still around the same time (it's kind of all a big blur to me now) was the age of machines like the Timex Sinclair, which only had either 16k or 48k of RAM. So when those 20 MB drives rolled around, they were a massive amount of storage in those days. I also remember when the first MP3s were released.. they were each something like 3 MB in size, and took forever to download over my modem connection. These were also the days of ASCII porn... sorry about the digression... but, yeah, that's what the stone age was like.. [1] - a bit of trivia about 5.25" floppies: we used to use hole punchers to cut a hole in the side of the disk in order to be able to write to it. Covering this hole with some tape would physically prevent the disk being written to. You could buy disks with a notch already professionally cut in the side for you, but IIRC it was cheaper to buy them without and cut the hole out with a hole puncher yourself. That's why you'll see some disks with a square notch in the side (that's the one professionally cut) and some with a semicircular hole (that's the one done with a hole puncher, by a hobbyist).
- TacticalCoder 4y ago
  > a bit of trivia about 5.25" floppies: we used to use hole punchers to cut a hole in the side of the disk in order to be able to write to it. Covering this hole with some tape would physically prevent the disk being written to. Hole puncher? Kitchen scissors I tell ya! On the C64 them 5"1/4 floppies were one-sided, so we'd make a hole to use them as two-sided disks. Basically we'd take two floppies, flip one upside down, take a pair of scissors and use the other to cut a hole at exactly the correct spot. While we'd be doing that we'd "pull" the disks inside the sleeves to the diagonal opposite of the scissor to make sure we'd not cut into the floppies. I've probably done it hundreds of times. I do still remember the exact feeling and could do it in a heartbeat : )
- jaclaz 4y ago
  For Sinclair it is easy to remember the dates: ZX80 ->1980 ZX81 ->1981 and those had 1KB RAM, the 16K (or 48K) came right after with the Spectrum, which is 1982.
anonymousiam 4y ago
The first hard drive I owned was a Seagate ST506/412 5-1/4" (10MB). IIRC I got a great deal and paid only $1k. This was pre PC and I connected it (with some difficulty) to my CP/M machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST506/ST412 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST506/ST412
- 300bps 4y ago
  Mine was a couple years after yours. Seagate ST-251 40 MB hard disk on my 10 MHz 8088.

deadbunny 4y ago

I remember my parents upgrading from their 386 with a 20mb HDD to a 486 with a 400mb drive and thinking we would never fill it.

pmoriarty 4y ago

Yeah, I remember seeing my first 20 MB hard drive in a computer magazine advertisement. That fantastic piece of kit cost something like $2000. Definitely way, way out of the price range of a hobbyist kid like me, who was still using 5.25" floppies[1] and later upgraded to the 3.5" floppies when I got an Amiga. Also, a bit earlier but still around the same time (it's kind of all a big blur to me now) was the age of machines like the Timex Sinclair, which only had either 16k or 48k of RAM. So when those 20 MB drives rolled around, they were a massive amount of storage in those days. I also remember when the first MP3s were released.. they were each something like 3 MB in size, and took forever to download over my modem connection. These were also the days of ASCII porn... sorry about the digression... but, yeah, that's what the stone age was like.. [1] - a bit of trivia about 5.25" floppies: we used to use hole punchers to cut a hole in the side of the disk in order to be able to write to it. Covering this hole with some tape would physically prevent the disk being written to. You could buy disks with a notch already professionally cut in the side for you, but IIRC it was cheaper to buy them without and cut the hole out with a hole puncher yourself. That's why you'll see some disks with a square notch in the side (that's the one professionally cut) and some with a semicircular hole (that's the one done with a hole puncher, by a hobbyist).

TacticalCoder 4y ago
> a bit of trivia about 5.25" floppies: we used to use hole punchers to cut a hole in the side of the disk in order to be able to write to it. Covering this hole with some tape would physically prevent the disk being written to. Hole puncher? Kitchen scissors I tell ya! On the C64 them 5"1/4 floppies were one-sided, so we'd make a hole to use them as two-sided disks. Basically we'd take two floppies, flip one upside down, take a pair of scissors and use the other to cut a hole at exactly the correct spot. While we'd be doing that we'd "pull" the disks inside the sleeves to the diagonal opposite of the scissor to make sure we'd not cut into the floppies. I've probably done it hundreds of times. I do still remember the exact feeling and could do it in a heartbeat : )
jaclaz 4y ago
For Sinclair it is easy to remember the dates: ZX80 ->1980 ZX81 ->1981 and those had 1KB RAM, the 16K (or 48K) came right after with the Spectrum, which is 1982.

anonymousiam 4y ago

The first hard drive I owned was a Seagate ST506/412 5-1/4" (10MB). IIRC I got a great deal and paid only $1k. This was pre PC and I connected it (with some difficulty) to my CP/M machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST506/ST412 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST506/ST412

300bps 4y ago
Mine was a couple years after yours. Seagate ST-251 40 MB hard disk on my 10 MHz 8088.