3 ms·
You call 5 1/4" disks 'old'? I remember 8"! And mag-tape! And paper tape! And front-panel toggle switches! Kids these days.
by JoeAltmaier 4y ago
You call 5 1/4" disks 'old'? I remember 8"! And mag-tape! And paper tape! And front-panel toggle switches!
Kids these days.
- thelazydogsback 4y agoPlug-board wiring!
- Symbiote 4y agoRailway signaling goes a lot further back than that. Steel cables connected between a mechanical signal and a lever, including fail-safes should cables break. A special baton to carry, only a train carrying a baton is allowed to move. These are still in use in some places.
- arethuza 4y agoJacquard looms are even older than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_machine
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoI don't go back that far. My first computer was an Altair 8800.
- arethuza 4y agoI once met a chap who had done programming with a hand drill.... Ancient mainframe controlling a steel plant, booted from a paper tape that had decades before been replaced with a leather strap. He need to alter something in the boot process - so had to resort to a hand drill :-)
- burntalmonds 4y agoThe article called them 5-inch disks, which immediately bothered me. C'mon, you can't just round it off. We always referred to them as 5 and a quarter inch floppies.
- tengwar2 4y agoFWIW, rounding off would have cause more problems with 3½" disks, since 3" disks also existed (and were popular in the UK and some parts of Europe).