Hard Disk Storage 1985

[bd139]

That is RPCemu running RISC OS 3.71. Using the BASIC inline assembler and Edit! Editor. Note that everything you see there comes on ROM built into the machine. Nothing is loaded off disc.

I don’t have the host machine running but basically it loads the address of the message and calls the OS to write it out with some alignment gubbins. Nothing clever. Code I used (as I’m rusty as hell) is here: https://www.heyrick.co.uk/assembler/basic.html .. the for loop is part of the assembler and species what passes to run.

Lovely platform to write code on. All of the applications on it were written in ARM assembly right up to the level of the built in Draw! app which is a fully layered vector graphics editor with anti aliased rendering etc.

[Alex Eisenhut]

About ten years ago I was walking in my neighborhood and I saw an odd thing on the ground, a full height 5.25 HD. I picked it up and it was a 1G ESDI Micropolis monster. I took the 4 magnets out of the actuator and BOY are they strong!

I think it's a late '80s thing.

[Ghelander]

I have one of these drives sitting on a shelf in my office. Looking to sell, any idea of the value?

[james_s]

I have one of these drives sitting on a shelf in my office. Looking to sell, any idea of the value?

It's worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it. Does it work? If you can't verify operation it is not worth much, if it does work, it depends on the specifics and whether you can find somebody who wants that specific drive. Just a wild assed guess I'd peg the value at somewhere between $20 and $200. It all depends on finding someone who wants it.

[james_s]

About ten years ago I was walking in my neighborhood and I saw an odd thing on the ground, a full height 5.25 HD. I picked it up and it was a 1G ESDI Micropolis monster. I took the 4 magnets out of the actuator and BOY are they strong!

I think it's a late '80s thing.

1GB ESDI would have been mid 90s. They cost around $1200 at the time, I remember drooling over them in catalogs.

[Alex Eisenhut]

By 1992 Micropolis were already selling 2GB SCSI-2 systems.

https://manx-docs.org/collections/antonio/chrisq/Micropolis_-_Subsystems_for_PCs_and_Compatibles.pdf

[james_s]

I guess it could have been late 80s, but even in the 90s a 1GB hard drive was huge. SCSI and ESDI coexisted for a while, I think the biggest ESDI drive I ever personally saw was 170MB. I think I finally got a 1GB drive around 1998, by that time a 3.5" IDE.

[David Hess]

I still have my Maxtor 8760E 670MB 5.25" full height ESDI drive, which cost about $900 new.

[ozcar]

I got a 15 Mb Honeywell hard drive with a pack in 1978.  It used late 60's technology and was about the size of a washing machine.  The controller/formatter was apparently about the size of a fridge.  I was able to spin up the drive and load the heads and see some data with a 'scope.  The head actuator was hydraulic and was driven off the spindle by a big flat belt and was about as loud as a Shop-vac.  I later worked with an ex-DEC guy that said that the flat belt often fell off when it collected enough oil.  If it was writing at the time it would first overwrite the data with longer bits and then grind off the oxide as the heads moved away from that cylinder and stopped flying.

I saved the frame for a work table and used the motor for a grinder.  I'm thinking of using the spindle for something like a surface grinder.  I took the pack apart and found two roached platters where the heads crashed.

In late 1980 I got one of the first Shugart (not Seagate) 8" hard disks with, count 'em, 4 Mb.  With the SASI (precursor to SCSI) controller it came to about $2K.  I was playing with assemblers and a C complier at the time and it reduced run times by about 60-80% over dual 8" floppies.  I last ran it about 10 years later and it still worked.  It was a hoot to boot into CP/M in less than a second.  I still have it and one of these days I might try it again.  Any comments on whether the heads might peel the oxide off the platter because it hasn't been used for so long?  It didn't have a dedicated landing zone but I always tried to set it over the innermost cylinder when shutting it off.

I'd say that by 1985 small disks were commodities and the price per bit really started to drop.  Weren't there like over 20 manufacturers of small disk drives about then?

Cheers,

There were certainly some weird and wonderful early data storage devices. My list of favourites would have to include the Noodle Snatcher (aka the Washing Machine or Maytag). Here a bloke has a picture of one, and is of the opinion that it was designed by the Rube Goldberg division at IBM: https://billyjim47.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-life-with-technology-chapter-11.html

Actually it was apparently designed by the Alan Shugart division, or at least by a team that he headed. Yep, him of Shugart Associates, and later Seagate fame.

[james_s]

I have a Maxtor 5.25" SCSI drive over at my mom's place, I think it's a 1GB unit. One of these days I should drag it home and see if it still works. I think there's still a 486 with a 650MB 5.25" SCSI drive too, I used that as a server back in the late 90s.

[CJay]

I have a Maxtor 5.25" SCSI drive over at my mom's place, I think it's a 1GB unit. One of these days I should drag it home and see if it still works. I think there's still a 486 with a 650MB 5.25" SCSI drive too, I used that as a server back in the late 90s.

Heh, ran a BBS from an Amiga and then later a PC with a pair of Maxtor XT4380S drives

[AaronLee]

The Macs were wonderfully designed and built hardware but what a crappy company to have dealings with, we got a few stern letters and injunctions to try and get us out of the Mac repair business, Apple *really* don't like competition.

Can't argue with you there. Apple as a company is not something I've ever been fond of, well not since the early days of the Apple II anyway. Unlike many people though, I'm able to separate Apple products from Apple the company, and I can appreciate well designed products even if I'm not fond of the company.

Really in the case of Apple it's the cult like dedication of a portion of their customer base that I find distasteful. Waiting in line for hours to get the latest iPhone? No thanks, I'll order last year's model at steep discount online and have it in my hand a day or two later without any hassle.

The original Macs were not a well designed product, from a software standpoint, IMHO. I worked a lot on Apple II and some on Apple III products and was quite excited when the Mac first came out, given it was a huge leap from the PC and standard computers of the day. My enthusiasm quickly changed to disdain for the company and their products though when I saw the horrible mess that was the original Mac OS. It was totally filled with bugs and released way too prematurely, but I assume management (Steve Jobs most likely) pushed it through anyways. As a software developer, you had to run through hoops to get around all the bugs and non-working functions. Many users likely never even knew how horrible the OS was under the hood, but developers certainly did.

Well, Steve Jobs, a man who many think was brilliant, some who even consider him almost a god, was someone I couldn't stand and I never understood one bit all the hype and praise given to him. He's long gone now though, and last year I decided to give Apple another chance, with the release of their M1 Mac, and have to say I'm impressed, especially from the standpoint of value for one's money in terms of speed, at least value compared to previous generation Macs. I still prefer PCs running Windows, given that's where I've invested most of my efforts and is the only environment capable of running lots of the apps I require. But for audio, video, and other creative type apps, I think Mac is the preferred platform.

[GlennSprigg]

A 5-Mb Hard-Drive being loaded onto a Pan Am flight, in 1956 !!!   



Evidently, today it could store just one hi-res iPhone picture.
It was available for 'Rent', at about $3,500 per Month...

[joeqsmith]

First couple of minutes of this video I show some of my old drives.  One is an old 2G full height single ended SCSI drive.  Cost on these is something better forgotten.   

[rsjsouza]

Well, since this thread evolved to a "show your HDD"... In the first minutes of this video I show an ancient Seagate ST296N 80MB SCSI-1 HDD working more than 20 years after its last powerup. I got it to use on my Roland W-30 sampler but never got around to do it.
 
https://youtu.be/ycM6YOSkxl8

[rsjsouza]

The original Macs were not a well designed product, from a software standpoint, IMHO. I worked a lot on Apple II and some on Apple III products and was quite excited when the Mac first came out, given it was a huge leap from the PC and standard computers of the day. My enthusiasm quickly changed to disdain for the company and their products though when I saw the horrible mess that was the original Mac OS. It was totally filled with bugs and released way too prematurely, but I assume management (Steve Jobs most likely) pushed it through anyways. As a software developer, you had to run through hoops to get around all the bugs and non-working functions. Many users likely never even knew how horrible the OS was under the hood, but developers certainly did.

Although the Mac OS prior to version 10 (or "X") was interesting under some aspects, when I used its version 9 it was terribly outdated  technologically when compared to Microsoft and Linux offers of the time.

But even the Apple II original was very interesting but I couldn't get past its fringe colors around its white pixels - something fixed in later revisions of the hardware. Those versions really looked better in a monochrome monitor. Otherwise, it was a very decent product at its prime.

Well, Steve Jobs, a man who many think was brilliant, some who even consider him almost a god, was someone I couldn't stand and I never understood one bit all the hype and praise given to him.

Chuck Peddle used to say that Steve Jobs was given more praise than he deserved, while Bill Gates was villanized more than he deserved.

[Alex Eisenhut]

First couple of minutes of this video I show some of my old drives.  One is an old 2G full height single ended SCSI drive.  Cost on these is something better forgotten.   

Sweet! If ads in the back of old computer magazines are reliable, something like a 1-2G HDD back in the late 80s and early 90s would have been in the 3000$ range. I wonder how many HDs were specced in their unformatted capacity though. Is 1G unformatted the same as 676M formatted?

From what I see they would have been used for mastering CDs, editing videos and special effects.

Nothing like the 20-60MB hard drives the average consumer would have even considered buying.

[ozcar]

A 5-Mb Hard-Drive being loaded onto a Pan Am flight, in 1956 !!!   



Evidently, today it could store just one hi-res iPhone picture.
It was available for 'Rent', at about $3,500 per Month...

That device was the heart of a system dubbed "RAMAC" by IBM in 1956. You can see the disk in operation here: .

Note how the read mechanism has to not only move in and out to the desired track, but also vertically to the required surface. Another highlight of that video to me is the point where they speak in glowing terms of the "wired control panel", and then proceed to open what looks like a trash can filled with a tangle of scrap cables.

I have seen that photo before somewhere. It reminded me of when the place where I was working in the early '70s ordered their first "System 370" machine. It was a model 155, which was the last IBM mainframe to have a "face" with hundreds of little lights in rows, and I think also their last mainframe to use magnetic core storage. When it was being unloaded at the airport, part of it was dropped off a forklift and pretty badly damaged. They managed to pull the heavy metal frame back into shape, and got it working, but if you knew where to look you could always see the kinks in the frame.

[james_s]

Well, Steve Jobs, a man who many think was brilliant, some who even consider him almost a god, was someone I couldn't stand and I never understood one bit all the hype and praise given to him. He's long gone now though, and last year I decided to give Apple another chance, with the release of their M1 Mac, and have to say I'm impressed, especially from the standpoint of value for one's money in terms of speed, at least value compared to previous generation Macs. I still prefer PCs running Windows, given that's where I've invested most of my efforts and is the only environment capable of running lots of the apps I require. But for audio, video, and other creative type apps, I think Mac is the preferred platform.

I don't think I would have enjoyed being around Jobs, but it is undeniable that he was extremely talented. Not so much as an engineer, but as a salesman. Also his extreme attention to detail is largely what made Apple products as good as they were. Just comparing iOS 6 to iOS 7 demonstrates this, 6 was extremely polished, consistent and reliable, 7 was a disjointed mess. They've had a mix of pretty good releases and turds in the meantime.

I was never a Mac guy back in the day, but today when I compare a Mac from say 1989 to a PC of the same era there is no comparison. The Mac while more expensive was so far ahead it's not even funny. 32 bit CPU, plug & play NuBus cards with no configuration jumpers, built in SCSI, high resolution (for the time) color video that could automatically detect the capabilities of the monitor that was connected. A standardized peripheral bus (ADB) many years before USB was developed. Built in networking in the form of AppleTalk, built in 8 bit digital audio. Luxurious feeling floppy drives with electric eject, nice clean tool-free cases where most of the components just click into place with very few screws even internally. Unfortunately this all came at a cost, and a machine like the Mac II was exorbitantly expensive, several times the price of a typical 286 PC of the era and had a more limited software library. Steve Jobs at one point declared that "The Macintosh is not a toy" and did not actively pursue games, a huge mistake in my opinion because everyone knows that the vast majority of home computers while ostensibly good for all sorts of productive tasks, spent most of their time running games, and games are to this day what drives a lot of the upgrading.

[james_s]

Heh, ran a BBS from an Amiga and then later a PC with a pair of Maxtor XT4380S drives

My friend ran a BBS on an enormous Pentium 60, I remember the case had casters on it and was about a foot wide and 3 feet tall and had a couple of those 1GB drives in it. I think he eventually retired that machine and gave me one of the drives, which is where the one I have probably came from.

[helius]

Unfortunately this all came at a cost, and a machine like the Mac II was exorbitantly expensive, several times the price of a typical 286 PC of the era and had a more limited software library. Steve Jobs at one point declared that "The Macintosh is not a toy" etc

Jobs was fired by Apple's board in 1985. The Mac II was announced in 1987, when Jobs was at NeXT preparing the NeXT Computer for its public release in 1988. The executive responsible for the Mac II was JLG: Jean-Louis Gassée. His focus was scientific computing, graphic design, and executive workstations for the paperless office, etc, and perceived competition from Sun and HP: not from PC clones. The six-slot Mac II machines were actually more expensive than the NeXTstation or some Sun workstations. This is the period when Apple attempted to design their own performance-leading RISC architecture called "Scorpius". JLG would also be pushed out, much as Jobs had been, by the board after Apple started to lose money in the early 1990s.

[james_s]

Yes I'm aware of that, then some time later Jobs came back. I was mixing and matching different eras, but at any rate the Mac was far ahead for a long time, but far more expensive. The original models introduced a lot of concepts that stuck with the lines, but a serious fault was their lack of expandability which was a poor decision mostly pushed by Jobs. The NeXT machines were amazing, but far too expensive and even less software support.

[AaronLee]

Steve Jobs at one point declared that "The Macintosh is not a toy" and did not actively pursue games, a huge mistake in my opinion because everyone knows that the vast majority of home computers while ostensibly good for all sorts of productive tasks, spent most of their time running games, and games are to this day what drives a lot of the upgrading.

And he also once said something to the effect that nobody would ever need a smartphone with a screen larger than 3.5" and that is was the perfect size. I laughed so hard when I heard that, at that time, because it made me realize how completely foolish he'd become, into thinking so narrowly that his personal view of a product was the only view. If there were a lot of people that also held his view, or a lot of people who didn't, but could be convinced to change their view to his view, then Apple could sell a lot of their products. But they could have sold a whole lot more if they (Steve Jobs) didn't have such a narrow view of the market for their products. The current management at Apple seems to be catching on to that point, whereas Steve Jobs never did.

[james_s]

And he also once said something to the effect that nobody would ever need a smartphone with a screen larger than 3.5" and that is was the perfect size. I laughed so hard when I heard that, at that time, because it made me realize how completely foolish he'd become, into thinking so narrowly that his personal view of a product was the only view. If there were a lot of people that also held his view, or a lot of people who didn't, but could be convinced to change their view to his view, then Apple could sell a lot of their products. But they could have sold a whole lot more if they (Steve Jobs) didn't have such a narrow view of the market for their products. The current management at Apple seems to be catching on to that point, whereas Steve Jobs never did.

I actually agree with him on that. Maybe not the part that nobody will ever need a larger screen, but it is the perfect size. I really hate the giant phones and "phablets" (*cringe*) that have been all the rage for years. I got my first iphone specifically because it was the only decent small smartphone I could find, and I got my SE for the same reason. I really do not understand the appeal of gigantic phones at all, I have laptops and tablets for when I want something larger, a phone is a pocket sized communication device that I always have on me, as long as it's large enough to type a text on, the smaller the better.

If they want to make bigger ones for people that desire those, great, but I really hope they keep offering something compact and support it well. Already I sometimes find apps that don't work right on it because needed buttons are off the edge of the screen.

[AaronLee]

And he also once said something to the effect that nobody would ever need a smartphone with a screen larger than 3.5" and that is was the perfect size. I laughed so hard when I heard that, at that time, because it made me realize how completely foolish he'd become, into thinking so narrowly that his personal view of a product was the only view. If there were a lot of people that also held his view, or a lot of people who didn't, but could be convinced to change their view to his view, then Apple could sell a lot of their products. But they could have sold a whole lot more if they (Steve Jobs) didn't have such a narrow view of the market for their products. The current management at Apple seems to be catching on to that point, whereas Steve Jobs never did.

I actually agree with him on that. Maybe not the part that nobody will ever need a larger screen, but it is the perfect size. I really hate the giant phones and "phablets" (*cringe*) that have been all the rage for years. I got my first iphone specifically because it was the only decent small smartphone I could find, and I got my SE for the same reason. I really do not understand the appeal of gigantic phones at all, I have laptops and tablets for when I want something larger, a phone is a pocket sized communication device that I always have on me, as long as it's large enough to type a text on, the smaller the better.

If they want to make bigger ones for people that desire those, great, but I really hope they keep offering something compact and support it well. Already I sometimes find apps that don't work right on it because needed buttons are off the edge of the screen.

It all comes down to each individual's use case, preferences, etc. Some people have bad eyes, and small fonts on a small screen simply won't work. Some people, even for texting like to see more than just two lines of the text they're replying to and two lines of the text they're typing. That one was one of my huge pet-peeves with those tiny screens, where I'd type a sentence, then go back to proofread it, and need to scroll due to such small screen real estate. The problem is further exasperated due to the need for the on-screen touch keypad, and which is difficult to type for someone with big hands but tiny touch areas, where you're always mistyping the keys next to what you intended. There just isn't enough space on a 3.5" screen for what some people need to be efficient. Of course some people watch videos on their smartphones and want a bigger screen for that (myself not included).

Anyways, as for the device easily fitting inside your pocket, the ability to easily hold the device, and swivel your thumb/fingers around to do the necessary actions, I would tend to agree that 3.5" is at or close to an optimal size. But depending on the app you're using, and how you use it, it might be far from optimal with regard to fitting everything on the screen so that it's easily usable. I agree they should continue to sell the smaller size phones, because for some people, it's exactly what they need. They also need to sell what other people need, which is a much bigger device. And that's my whole point, that Jobs couldn't see what were the needs of anyone beyond his narrow view. It wasn't that his view was bad. His view may have been and still is perfect for some. It's just that it's horrible for others.