In Pictures: External Data Storage Through The Ages

[gradius2]

You guys needs up-to-date, 1TB usb flash is already out, and costs only $3K!

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]eijiyuki[/nom]Personally I think Bluray is a step backwards. The last slide should really stay around SSDs and usb drives (any nonvolatile memory).[/citation]

Blu-Rays are non-volatile memory. Volatile memory is stuff such as DRAM and SRAM that need to be powered on or they lose their stored data quickly (loss of data can often be slowed down by quickly supercooling the memory modules after power is removed, but for any other situation, volatile memory loses all data in a matter of less than a second to several minutes, depending on the technology.

 

[Guest]

I started programming in Algol on a Univac 1108 in 1969. We used IBM 026 and 029 card punch machines to create "program decks", with job control cards at the beginning and end of the program itself to identify ourselves to the machine, and tell it what compiler to run, and what data to use with the program. The output was on large fan-fold computer paper that came out of a line printer or a chain printer.

You submitted your "job" and waited anywhere for 2-48 hours for it to come back, hopefully successfully, but often with errors in the JCL or bugs that kept the program from compiling or running. Remote Job entry from a terminal was considered quite a benefit in those days.

The card decks were your storage, and you made mods to the individual cards to change the program. Periodically, you would run the deck thru a card duplicator to make sure you had a backup. Some people who were fortunate had their own tape reels with their data or production programs. The extremely fortunate had space on the Fastrand drum or on the IBM 2314 disks (on a 360/67)

 

[Guest]

Isn't the Jaz considered a removable hard drive?? If so, the SyQuest 44MB cartridge should be earlier in the slides. I believe the SyQuest had a larger market than the Jaz ever did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_Technology

 

[athurman]

I personally preferred Syquest drives (others liked Bernoulli drives) which were basically hard drive platters in a plastic case that one could eject and insert into a case so that you could transfer large capacities (at the time) from one machine to another or even take them into Kinko's for printing. Best of all, they worked at the hard drive speeds of the day, rather than the relatively slower Zip or even SuperDrive disks of the day. Yes, they were bigger, but better.

 

[Guest]

you missed microcassetes and DAT.
There was also a 3" floppy used on the Amstrad
some early BASIC programs came on a 45 rpm audio disk (Timex sinclair had quite a few titles)
some barcode or 2 dimentional barcode were used to distribute software (the gameboy advance used such device)

 

[robochump]

Cant wait to store data in crystals...

 

[youssef 2010]

They missed the HDDVD

 

[Guest]

Amazing - I've used most of these. I took my first computing class (FORTRAN) as a freshman in fall of 78, and we were still using punch cards - type em up, stand in line, give them to the operator, wait for your print out on the 17 inch wide paper, hope you didn't have a typo or get the cards out of order.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, paper tape was omitted. It was used in a variety of ways for data storage and retrieval. Some devices were created to use it with the early micros like the Apple ][. --Bob

 

[togenshi]

[citation][nom]microgoliath[/nom]Isn't floppy disk still the best and safest way to update your bios? Correct me if I'm wrong please xD.[/citation]

Not anymore. USB Boot drives are a safer route and even then, a lot of motherboard manufactures have utlities to update firmware from the hard drive.

 

[billgatez]

What!! No Sparq drive??

@Microgoliath. Most motherboards now support BIOS updates via usb flash drive or CD's. And dont even ave a connector for a floppy drive.

 

[misry]

Ahhh. Pulling a little red wagon down the hall with punch cards to port Star Trek from a VAX/VMS to an IBM360.

 

[dreadlokz]

OMG! Im a bit geek, but I didn't know about half of those 0o haha
nice article!

 

[bucknutty]

I still use 3.5 floppies for bios. Many boards even as new as core 2 duo cant boot from a usb drive. I have an EVGA 650sli that cant boot from USB.

 

[allawash]

[citation][nom]Microgoliath[/nom]Isn't floppy disk still the best and safest way to update your bios? Correct me if I'm wrong please xD.[/citation]
[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]Indeed it is plus it is easy :s[/citation]

Most, if not all, newer motherboards support using a flash drive via USB to update the bios now, I would think that would be easier.