[OT] Re: [gentoo-user] Seagate hard drives with dual actuators.

[Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>]

On Thursday 14 November 2024 16:48:56 GMT Dale wrote:

> I remember seeing old drives that had I think 14" platters.  They had
> large motors to spin them.  The controller was a separate thing too.  I
> think their capacity was like 30 or 40MBs or so.  It usually took two
> people to move one of those things.  The company I worked for upgraded
> systems twice in the five years I worked for them.  Their fastest one
> ran at a blazingly fast 25MHz.  It was RISC based, I think I spelled
> that right.

"Reduced instruction set computing." Hyphenate as you like.

In the 70s and 80s the national grid control centre in this country used three 
2MB disks, any one or two of which could be online at any time. I can't tell 
you the platter size, but they were mounted in cabinets about 5' long, 3'6" 
tall and 2' wide. Each. Our training included servicing the air circulation 
system and its filters. I still remember the aluminium-alloy casings.

The two computers were Ferranti Argus 500 minis, one on-line, one hot standby, 
with 16MB of 2-microsecond core store, with the applications written in-house. 
The operating system was primitive compared with today, also written by us. 
Nothing relocatable; programs and data lived in strictly defined regions.  They 
drove (I think) 24 analogue vector-drawing displays (no raster to modulate) in 
the control room upstairs. They never could display a perfect circle - there 
was always a tiny gap. The D/A converters were big beasts. The systems had 
been developed from earlier ones in nuclear submarines. We didn't have their 
big, circular consoles though.

I hate to think how many miles of 8-hole tape I wound and rewound. Thank 
goodness we didn't have to cope with 80-column punched cards (Hollerith?) as 
the ivory-tower, batch-processing mainframe people did.

We used to show visitors around, some from American utility companies, who 
always asked "yes, nice display driver, but where are your main machines?

Great things be could achieved with assembler and first-class people. More 
efficient than just throwing money at a problem until it gives in.

> Those were the days tho. 

Indeed, the best. Mind you, nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

Time for bed, said Zebedee.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.