Blast From The Past
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This is interesting, a brief pictorial history of hard drives, though I'm not thrilled with the images. Specifically I was hoping to see a 2nd generation platter.
I used to work at the Surry Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia, which was an interesting place. Beyond the fact that a nuclear power reactor is fascinating in and of itself, it was interesting to me because of the technology, or lack thereof. I worked there in the early 90s but most of the technology was older, from the 60s and 70s because that stuff was "certified" and most of the newer PC based things were not.
There was this one old computer that controlled part of the actual reactor components and then our PC systems fed data from it for real time information. This thing had a hard drive that was a 1 or 2MB drive, the platter about 18 inches or so across, and you could actually see it spin.
Not much for performance, but I got a kick out of watching it spin whenever I got into the control room.
Steve Jones
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My first job involved an HP3000/42, 52 and model 70 mini-computer and the 300MB disk drives for that were about the size of a laundrette washing machine. I suspect they had a number of shared components.
I've just bought my wife a 30GB iPod and the contrast in size and capacity is scary.
What really impressed me in those days was the customer service that HP used to give via their engineers. To a man these guys were the unsung heroes of the HP empire. Their presence is sorely missed.
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My first job was supporting Oracle 5 on a Pr1me mainframe. We had 20Mb of disk space, and the system could support about 70 concurrent users.
I only had two major problems in my time as Oracle DBA...
The first was the ops staff putting the clocks back to GMT (changing the system time from British Summer Time, which is an hour ahead of GMT, we do this over here just to make the evenings darker every autumn) without waiting for the Oracle processes to stop running, which gave the Before Image Writer a serious case of deja vu. I managed to restore the system from the nightly backup on this occaision.
The second was a lightening strike on our computer centre that blew every circuit in the Pr1me and arced across the hard disk, welding the disk heads to the platten.
Shortly after this I moved to Oracle 7.0 for Novell Netware on a PC .
My dad used to bring home paper tapes from work which we twisted to form paper streamers at christmas, and punched cards which gran used as fire lighters. I always feel a sense of wonder that in the 20 years I have been in IT computers have moved from being back-room behemoths tended by academics in white coats to windows mobile phones and PCs which fit in your pocket.
David
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
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It's thirty years since I did my computing degree and started in the industry and one of my first jobs was on the automation of the new Reading brewery.
This used a DEC PDP-11 and we had to write memory management handling to use anything over the basic 32K of memory.
The disc drives were washing machine size and held 5MB - my mobile phone has 50 times that!
Every byte counted so code was carefully crafted and optimised - something we are less careful with these days.
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My first real job was at a company that had an IBM 8100 system. We called it Frankenstein because it was huge and ugly. It had a whopping 10Mb hard disk with 18 inch platters. This monster was used for payroll processing and I always hated having to run jobs on this.
In the early 90's, before we migrated the payroll system off this, it had a hard-drive crash. Of course we had it under maintenance, but IBM couldn't find a hard-disk for it. A couple days later they were able to buy a used one from another company for $10k and had to courier it across the country to get it to us in time to run payroll. That is one case where maintenance really paid.
Joe Johnson
NETDIO,LLC. -
When I retired from the Navy my first civilian programming job was working on a HP3000/70 (we called it a smart freezer) with the 300mb hard drives "washers" mentioned earlier. The first time I walked into the computer room I was a bit panicky. The hard dirves were all shaking and vibrating like crazy. My IT manager told me this was normal and wait until the monthend processing started - the floors would start shaking then! I am writing this today from a laptop that has 100 times as much storage space as that entire 600 sq foot computer room!
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This year marks my 30th year as a computer professional, and while I did once drive a truck for Bechtel Power Corp, the closest I got to the nuclear power plants at San Onofre was the parking lot. I saw all the plans and technology that went into them though. Scary by todays standards. I started programming on a Computer Automation mini computer which had a teletype attached. The hard disks at that time were the Pertec and Xerox disk pack type and had 5, 10 or 20 megabytes. The computer had 16k words of core memory and I had to bootstrap the system from paper tape through the teletype at about 110 baud. But to get the paper tape to run I had to fingerbone the loader into the core from the front panel. I had memorized about 150 16 bit instructions. The 8 inch floppy had been around for less than 2 years and no one made an interface for them on our computers. But once you had the system up it was rock solid. I could power cycle the computer and it would continue running where it left off when power went away. Try that with a PC today. One of the final tests for these systems was a 24 hour power cycle test. Power was turned on and off at 10 minute intervals and if any computer stopped running the test jobs, it failed. That was 1976. Later I worked for a third party maintenance company called Tymshare Inc. I actually worked on Drum memory which is a huge drum coated with iron oxide substrate and 16-18 heads mounted vertically along it. It was used as memory and storage way back before my time even. The heads were ceramic and the size of a quarter. The whole thing was the size of a dishwasher with a compressor next ot it.
Scott
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I worked at U.S. Borax in the research department in the late 70's. We used a process control system that was programmed using a dialect of BASIC, with two character variable names only, that ran the research plant (pumps, valves, etc.) It had a similar 18-inch platter that probably held about 1 MB (I don't recall how much, exactly). Even as a technician, the engineers let me "hack" the system to enhance its functionality, as I was one of the very few who had real programming ability.
So long, and thanks for all the fish,
Russell Shilling, MCDBA, MCSA 2K3, MCSE 2K3
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This is all very quaint, but I don't see the point of including these "editorials" in the daily emails. It's simply blather, albeit on the techical side, but it is always of little or no value. I would prefer something useful.
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Why not read a different thread then and leave us old farts to wallow in the rosy glow of nostalgia.
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Of course no one is mentioning having to crimp their own computer cables and stream them through the roof only to find that pins 2 & 3 need a cross over for a terminal but a straight-through for a printer.
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Anyone remember the temperature sensor in the HP3000/70? If the air con failed the computer room used to go from 17C to 40C in about 30 seconds, in which case the console would start flashing in reverse case letters.
I remember a utility program that used to promote an admin user up to main console privileges and back down again. The command line instructions were GOD and MORTAL.
To emulate a user the command was TIT!
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To Eric: There approximatley 43 other threads to talk about technical stuff and there is this one which is just for fun (or not).
I do remember pulling hundreds of feet of armored cable onboard ship that went from remote sensors to a central computer processing room. The military specifications for the cable wiring were usually 2 revisions behind in any given installation and after we "correctly" hooked up the sensors we would often find that the equiipments sockets (sometimes with 100+ pins) did not match the wiring diagrams in the monitor or computer room. So much fun!!
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Hi All,
I did a post about Steve's latest this morning then hit the wrong button... Can you guess that I've been around a while myself
What I wanted to touch on was the comment made about using older computers to run a nuclear station because of certification standards that did not allow the latest and greatest to be used.
This is rampant in the USA and I suspect in Europe as well! I'll share a personal example below that has nothing to do with computers, but I'll bet most of you could come up with an example of your own if you think about it for a moment.
Certification usually implies that a government set of standards and tests must be passed to assure the general population is getting the goods it thinks it's purchasing.
My grip is the difference you must pay for aircraft parts on certified aircraft. Now granted, before an aircraft is put up for sale as a newly designed product I agree with testing and certification that it will perform according to published standards.
However, when technology improves, that technology must be tested again on every aircraft by manufacturer and model or it cannot be used. If you've never owned an airplane you may wonder where's the beef!
My 2 partners and I own a 1959 Cessna 175. A slightly heavier duty 172 if you’re not familiar with this model. Carries 4 people and some gasoline or 2 people and full fuel with a suit case or two
I'm not talking "big bird" here...Yesterday I called the certified FAA mechanic to tell him that the engine primer wasn't working and asked if it could be repaired. He said it was no problem, a little labor and 2 fifty cent seals. The knob's a little worn, so I asked how much for a new one. He checked and said about 525.00! Ouch, ouch, ouch!!! This same part if used on your Honda or Chevy would be worth about 20.00 at the auto parts store.
My mechanic doesn't mind if I parts shop so I checked with Aircraft Spruce and found they have 2 primers listed in their catalog. One is about 85.00 and the other about 155.00. I made a quick call to customer service to see if either one was certified for my aircraft. Sorry, these two "low priced" primers cannot be used on certified aircraft.
OK, so again what's the big deal??? Well, I fly with ignition systems that were designed in the 30's, and engine components designed in the 40's, analog gauges that have been around since steam engines pulled trains, and navigation equipment for a system installed in the 50's. My only accurate way of identifying my location, speed, altitude, and distance to my destination is a hand held GPS that costs less than 600.00 but cannot be permanently mounted in my aircraft because it's (you guessed it) not certified.
Now, if I build a 250+ MPH experimental aircraft (that's about twice as fast as my Cessna) there are tons of great goodies that can be installed. Non-certified aircraft engines with the latest in electronic dual ignitions, upgraded cylinder designs, better materials, and more power on less fuel. The navigation instruments can be state of the art GPS screens, with weather, terrain avoidance, and for a little more traffic avoidance. Also, an excellent 3 axis autopilot is available at a reasonable price. I can also add in a computer that monitors dozens of engine functions and alerts me if anything goes out of limits. All great tools that if certified would cost more than the total value of my Cessna, but well within the reach of an experimental builders budget.
My government is so helpful... It protects me from making simple decisions with my certified mechanic that would improve my aircrafts safety and reduce my operating costs. All in the name of CERTIFICATION!!!
Bill
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