Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!karl
From: karl@ficc.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: PC vs. mainframe I/O (Re: SCSI on steroids)
Message-ID: <6184@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 15 Sep 89 16:11:33 GMT
References: <21962@cup.portal.com> <3289@scolex.sco.COM>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 16

In article <21962@cup.portal.com> cliffhanger@cup.portal.com (Cliff C Heyer) writes:
>[the first] disk in the late 50s contained 5MB? NOT 50KB like 
>early floppies. These guys new how much data they 
>had to store and weren't going to fuss around with 
>a 50KB hard drive.

The Sage early warning computer had a drum storage unit that was about
five by eight feet by six feet high.  It stored around 128 Kbytes.
It was retired in the early 1980s (!).  They have one (drum unit, front
panel, etc.; not everything) at the Boston Compter Museum.

You wanna tell us how good computing was in the fifties, go hop on a period
machine, say a Bendix G15 (I think I know where you can find one), and try to 
use it to do *anything*.
-- 
-- uunet!ficc!karl	"Have you debugged your wolf today?"