Progress

[Geo]

The year is 1956 This huge box is not any big machine or computer that is being transported from one place to another with the strength of over 4 people involved.

It’s a hard drive with a storage of 5 megabytes.
That amount of IBM storage could only hold around 6 photos, that would not be quite helpful in the present generation of unlimited selfies at one time.
this amount of storage and such enormous size of the hard drive was leased for $3,000 a month by the company that is equivalent to $30,000 today.

In contrast to this, we can carry more than 32 gigabytes on our phones daily. equal to 6,400 of these 1956 memory blocks

 

[Nirvanauk]

Ah. Those were the days. One banking installation I looked after had 64 disc drives arrranged in 8 banks of 8. They each had removable drives of 100mb that contained 16 platters the size of LPs. As you say a phone has more computing power!

 

[Phill D]

We all have significantly more computer power in our mobile phones than was available to the apollo space capsules...

Sliderule at the ready..

 

[Orion]

We all have significantly more computer power in our mobile phones than was available to the apollo space capsules...

Sliderule at the ready..

Even a modern washing machine will probably have more!

 

[Sandancers]

In the early 80s I was working with 1802 micro-processors, the same ones as used in the early space-shuttles. Excellent item for the day, we were just using them to control simple functions, but because of the price of solid state memory we were limited to just a few Kilobytes. Had to be really tight with the programming, which was all machine code. Ah, the good old days !

Later on moved to a different part of the industry which used some equipment that we had designed with the 1802. The boss was fond of putting down the tech chaps by keep saying about any problem, "It's not rocket science is it?" Hah, "Well actually it is if it's got an 1802 in it!"

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[Odd-no-more]

I remember when I installed my first zip drive it had 100 MEGABYTES so much space after a floppy disk

 

[Revolvor]

In the early 70's, my girlfriend ( now wife) paid £75 for a memory upgrade for my ZX81 computer the size ........ 64kB !!

 

[SpeedyDux]

In the early 70's, my girlfriend ( now wife) paid £75 for a memory upgrade for my ZX81 computer the size ........ 64kB !!

Wow that was a lot of money then. I can see why she is a keeper!

 

[TizzyOnTour]

Great stories. When I first started selling vertical industry solutions in 1987, we provided the complete package of software and hardware. Very few were sourcing their own hardware in those days. We offered a CPM machine with twin floppy drive, or if they were really keen, they could have a 5Mb external hard drive, which we confidently informed them was like a bottomless pit that they would probably never fill. No one ever came back and complained it was full.

 

[63720]

Remember Y2K? I spent more than 3 months surveying all our equipment that was supposed to stop working on 1st January 2000 and nothing happend. .
Anyone remember DW4?

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[donkey]

My memory is not that good!

So how much data could we store on a floppy disk?

I remember having dozens of the things. I still find the odd one, hidden in a box labelled 'Keep Safe'

Geoff

 

[Richard n Ann]

My memory is not that good!

So how much data could we store on a floppy disk?

I remember having dozens of the things. I still find the odd one, hidden in a box labelled 'Keep Safe'

Geoff

Was it 1.4mb? Didn't use them much

 

[Nirvanauk]

Was it 1.4mb? Didn't use them much

Sounds about right.

 

[Vanman]

Was it 1.4mb? Didn't use them much

When we first got our 'diskless' PC's at work they came with a 720k floppy disk that held the Operating system, Wordperfect, Supercalc and DataEase. There was still room to save your work!

Those were the hard plastic disks that you guys probably remember best. Before then there were truly floppy disks, I think the only ones I used were 360k but that doesn't mean there were not smaller

 

[dazandandrea]

My first computer was the Sinclair spectrum. I remember loading games from a cassette, used to take ages and then many crashed at the last minute.
Im constantly amazed how things have progressed in the last 30-40 years.
(Im 52 btw)

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[Richard n Ann]

I remember using pet computer discs of some sort at school c1982, was a separate drive and you had to type "catalog" so the compooter listed what was on it. 80k springs to mind and I used to think that was super cool

 

[kevenh]

In the early 70's, my girlfriend ( now wife) paid £75 for a memory upgrade for my ZX81

Early 80’s

Was it 1.4mb? Didn't use them much

Close. 1.44MB

I used to have a tape drive to load programs & games into my ZX81

Edit: and the “real” floppy disks overlapped with work’s and my earliest desktop computers

 

[Richard n Ann]

Early 80’s

Close. 1.44MB

I used to have a tape drive to load programs & games into my ZX81

Edit: and the “real” floppy disks overlapped with work’s and my earliest desktop computers

My ZX81 very rarely loaded via tape. Was quicker to type the program in, didn't take long

Even the spectrum sometimes wouldn't load although it improved when I bought a cheapo tape player.

 

[Vanman]

I just cheated and looked on Wiki ... of those Disks generally used by business and the public there were -

360k 5" Single Density
720k 5" and 3" Double Density and
1.44k 3" High Density

 

[donkey]

Thanks for the update on floppies.

My first computer was a Commador........ Not sure which model. I could sit for hours and hours programming a game into it. The game would run for about 30 seconds!!!!!

Geoff

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[Popty]

I (am old enough to) remember, Tina tapes, 8 track stereos, reel to reel tape players, even before cassettes, how things have changed,

 

[Richard n Ann]

Anybody play this?

 

[donkey]

I (am old enough to) remember, Tina tapes, 8 track stereos, reel to reel tape players, even before cassettes, how things have changed,

Got the others but not a clue on 'Tina Tapes'???

Geoff

 

[Bailey58]

I remember me and the boys loading games from a tape, can't remember the OS but we'd go and have lunch or dinner only to find the thing had crashed when we went back half hour later.

 

[Guigsy]

Anybody play this?

Ah yes. Those were the days. When it took a minute to load the loading screen...

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[deleted79651]

Elaine was working as a programmer on a mainframe computer around 1974 or 75. The mainframe had 16k of RAM ... And the animals went in two by two ...

Steve

 

[Revolvor]

Early 80’s

Forgive me! ...... It was a long time ago!!

 

[Popty]

Got the others but not a clue on 'Tina Tapes'???

Geoff

Meant tika tape, bloody predictive text

 

[donkey]

AH Yes predictive text, that is apparently called 'Progress'

Geoff

 

[deleted79651]

AH Yes predictive text, that is apparently called 'Progress'

Geoff

Naw, Predictive Text may have aimed for Progress, but preferred prognosis ...Steve

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