Mike Miller wrote: > > > I remember sitting in a classroom in 1987 and hearing that it wouldn't > be long before we'd be talking about "gigabytes." I thought it was > true, but it was still amazing to dream about it. Now we're talking > about terabytes. > > Back in those days an older professor told me about his work in the > 1960s on an old computer that needed an HDD. They were storing > everything on cards. Reboots took a long time but were frequently > needed. So they managed to convince the university (UW-Madison) to > buy them an HDD. It was 1966 and the HDD cost $65,000. It held 2 MB > and I think it was as big as a washing machine. It probably seemed > like a lot of storage space at the time. > > I bought my first HDD in 1986. It cost me $450 and it held 30 MB > because it was a true 20 MB drive with an RLL controller that added > 50% to the volume. Back then 30 MB went a long, long way. You > *could* still do your work on two 360 KB 5.25" floppies (e.g., > WordPerfect 4.2 on one floppy and your data on the other), but it was > beginning to get uncomfortable. This was before I had a "high > density" floppy drive that held about 1.2 MB on a single 5.25" floppy > - that was luxurious! > > Mike > > > The first HDD I remember was at the Minnesota Department of Transportation about 1965, not sure of the storage size but the "drum" was six feet long and about two feet in diameter. The drive was in a cabinet with large windows so every one could watch it spin. It was going to hold all the drivers license, vehicle license and state crime records on the HDD, maybe one meg? Would say back in 1965 the state population was around two million, so one third of the population may have had drivers license and half owned a vehicle and criminal records one tenth? Jerry