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General discussion

Recycle old HDs(junk HDs)

May 10, 2006 1:29PM PDT

If you like me have older HDs of well under 1gb or worst, 20mb, its time to get rid of them. Yeah, I found some in my closet, I forgot about. Besides using some parts for crafts, those disks make great clocks, I simply tear down for aluminium and such. The best part I believe to keep is the magnets. These babies can hold a calendar quite well or some wrench upon working on a car. There's not alot of good stuff to save and many may simply throw unto the metal pile for the metal recyclers. Of course, if you're handy, re-use the stepper motor control chip for projects as well as any other electronic compents but these are small power items. Further, you'll need some special tools if you don't already to strip any non-alumium metal in order to get best grade. Sometime maybe had doing all this rather pitching onto the junk heap, but those magnets really are good items. Just a thought and in some cases found true faults of why HDs failed.

junkman -----Willy Happy

Discussion is locked

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(NT) (NT) Boy...you ARE old!!! ;-)
May 11, 2006 7:24AM PDT
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(NT) (NT) My 1st computer was a sliderule :(
May 11, 2006 11:08PM PDT
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The first moon mission
May 18, 2006 8:35PM PDT

The first moon mission went up on less computer power than a kid's video game.

Sandy

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Scary
May 18, 2006 11:02PM PDT

Yeah, you got to admit, that was scary. Can you imagine trusting your life to that!?

The old Cape Canaveral museum makes a good visit for anyone wanting to know more about that era.

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Since we're talking about how old people are ....
May 18, 2006 11:53PM PDT

Does anyone remember the old Radio Shack RS6000? It had two platter like drives with the os on one platter. I can't remember for sure but the user space may have been mounted ala Unix.

btw - My first desktop was an XT model from Base distributors, a local distributer. I recall being faced with the dillema of buying a 10M harddrive vs a 20 M harddrive. I could not imagine why I would need all that drive space. It cost me $3000.00 which I put on my first charge card. It was also my first portable since I could easily park the heads and throw it into the back of my red honda and GOOOO!

Ah, but for the good ole days.

jmb ~ 2 old 2 be tech!!!!!

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Basic and 1st 5mb HD
May 19, 2006 1:11AM PDT

Geezzz, I remember scrapping enough $$$ to buy a 2nd FD. I now had a whopping 720kb and much later wheeled and dealed on 5mb HD to give me the best PC, I worked so hard for. Within a year or less, they were offering such at $200 less for what I paid for and with a guarntee which was a big deal back then. All those Ataris, Commandores, etc, had so much s/w and hoped alot for better PC s/w that I could actually use. I finally got something called, PFS:dataline or something like that. I was able to make mailing labels and keep a database of all my inventory, wow! Understand, it took a computer room back then and punch cards and etc. to get company needs filled and I certainly couldn't do that, until my 1st generic IBM/PC. Awww, the golden days... -----Willy

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For all you yunguns' out there....
May 19, 2006 8:15AM PDT

My first PC was an IBM Classic. I was in hog heaven with 256kb of memory and 2 5.25" double density double sided floppy disks. The whole setup, with software and desk, cost me a real cheap $6,000. Later I took the plunge and purchased a, now hold on to your hat, 5mb HD for $600. Now try writiing COBOL apps on two floppy disks. Wink

The Classic is in demand from museums. If you have one, you can get good money for them. Especially from collectors.

and life goes on...

Jack

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20 Megabytes!!!!!
May 18, 2006 10:07PM PDT

are you serious. there used to be computers with only 20 mb. what on earth was it? the first ibm-pc?
they had cd's 1985 and they hold 700mb

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700 kB?
May 18, 2006 10:23PM PDT

I have an Amiga 1000 in my basement from the 80s with no hard drive just 1 floppy drive of about 700 kB. It was top of the line when I bought it. If I recall correctly the original ibm-PC didn't ship with a hard drive either. The smallest hard drive in my basement is 200 MB still functioning in a AT style machine. Before my time there were computers (Commodore Pet? Vic 20? 64? or Radio-Shack TRS-80? I don't remember) with no disk drives. I remember for some you could hook up a tapeplayer that used regular cassette tapes. Today I carry my thumb drive with me everywhere. In 1977 I was carrying around stacks of punch cards for my Fortran class.

I too went slide rule, log tables, calculator, programable calculator (HP 25?) and off from there.

Malcolm

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but in the 80's
May 18, 2006 10:43PM PDT

they had cd's in 1985. i think when they came out cd players were "only" $700. couldnt they have made a disc drive based on cd's?

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post slide-rule, pre PC old
May 18, 2006 10:46PM PDT

Yeah, and remember what fun we had with the Amigas and Radio Shack Color computers (16K memory). Really creative. The whole family was involved.

Now, computer use is mostly internet browsing and word processing. sigh...

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tapeplayer that used regular cassette tapes
May 19, 2006 2:52AM PDT

the original Sinclair Spectrum the one with the rubber keys that fell out Sad
cassete player+21" black and white TV and voila!


.

.

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Conversation pieces
May 18, 2006 10:51PM PDT

I open them up, removing the cover, and use them as conversation pieces. Eiher on my desk at work, or at home. See: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v19/pilaar39/blog/open-harddrives.jpg

These opened HDs also make good gifts to people who have never seen the inside of a HD. It is sometimes amazing to see the look of astonishment on their faces, and it always seems to generate conversations of the 'old days'.

Btw.. the two large drives in the photo above, are 20 MB drives from really old IBM PCs. And true, the original PCs had only one or two floppy drives. (I remember working on an old IBM System/360 model 30 'mainframe' that had a whopping 8 K of ferro-magnetic 'donut' core memory.. but that is really dating myself! Happy )

Now, the question is can you guess what the two bullet-shaped objects in the foreground of the photo are?? No, they are not elephant suppositories! Hint: they are computor storage devices of some sort.

Paul

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??
May 18, 2006 10:56PM PDT

look a little bit like a split between a vaccum tube and a soda can

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Guess
May 18, 2006 11:06PM PDT

Those are drum disk drives. Instead of the platter we are use to in hard disk of the modern era they would rotate on an axle. Much like some of the very early record players.

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Yep ... those are itty bitty DRUMs
May 18, 2006 11:22PM PDT

The name ''drums'' is actually an acronym as follows:
DRUM = Divice Random Access Memory

Worked on a mainframe system in the 1970s (Univac 110Cool that had these devices but they were the size of a refrigerator (laying on it side). Cant remember how much storage the big DRUMs had but we thought it was MASSIVE!!!

We also had a device called ''CRAM'' (Card Random Access Memory) hooked to an NCR-315 mainframe. These had 256 magnetic ''cards'' that hung on rods and dropped into a spinning reader when you requested the data. Each card had 256 'tracks' of data, each track could hold 256k of data ... hum does the number 256 sound like a physical/logical barrier to you too?

Boy have I dated myself!!!

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Close..
May 18, 2006 11:38PM PDT

Well, you guys are close.. but they are definitely not 'ramdom access' storage devices, but rather sequential storage access devices, like take drives.

These are cartridges from the IBM 3850 mass storage device. Each cart could hold about 50 MB of data, and the 3850 device had a honeycomb storage that held about 10,000 of these carts. (Do a google on ''IBM 3850 mass storage'' for more info)

A close up photo of a cartridge with the tape can be seen at; http://www.science.uva.nl/museum/remarkable.html
(the same page also talks about another 'mass storage' device, the IBM 2321 - yeah, and I worked on that one too! Ah, the good old days..)

btw.. I just noticed that one of these carts recently sold on ebay for about $355.. and I have two on the shelf.. hmmmmm...

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Hds, ohhh no
May 19, 2006 1:27AM PDT

I worked at the Burroughs refurb center back in the old days. I rebuild old "cermanic" disk HDs of a single platter and 1-sidedUsed mostly in banks). When they truly crashed, they smashed and cracked and all that. Otherwsie, a grove was worn-in and had to be replaced. The main Burroughs HD was a unit of 5ft. tall of 2 platters of about 30in. across or close to that. The whole unit was about 36-40in.??? across When the heads and wiring had to be replaced, they used a "solder gun" not a solder iron and the solder pot was alwyas hot. man, I'm glad I didn't work in that dept.. -----Willy

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well...
May 19, 2006 2:50AM PDT

I had the tape deck for the TRS80. The tape deck lasted much longer than the TRS (could be because I used it like a compuetr from a movie, touch two leads from a speaker...) Next comp was a Heath Zenith kit (real kit)wit a 10mb hd. At the same time my dad was bringing home his portable Compaq, built in crt, dual flop's on the side. Great memories.

Side note, I remeber EA sports footbal run from flops. the players were x' and o's.

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Hey, I also had a TRS-80
May 19, 2006 7:16AM PDT

with some type of basic interpretor, maybe a basic word processor or something and game cartridges. I believe I used my old 19" TV as a monitor. Cool.

btw - I upgraded to a 21" TV back in '91. Still going strong. I don't have a new TV yet but I sure would like a slick new laptop. We've been watching the kids newer Mickey Mouse TV. Good reception.

You can always identify an old tech because they will never fail to mention their first heath-kit or Radio Shack computers.

j.

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MEMORY DEVICES
Aug 1, 2009 9:35AM PDT

tHOSE 'THINGS" WERE PART OF A CACHED MEMORY SYSTEM. tHE 'THINGS WERE RETRIEVED AND READ/WRITTEN TO BE A SINGLE MECHANISM. SEVERAL OF THESE THINGS WERE USED IN AN ARRAY (EGG CRATE LIKE) NESTS.

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Absolutely serious
May 18, 2006 10:55PM PDT

First IBM PC did not have HDD. They had (if you are lucky) two FDD drives 360K each: one for OS the other one for customer programs or data. If you are unlucky you boot from OS floppy and swapped disk. First HDD controller in PC was introduced in PC XT model, it came with Seagate ST225 HDD, 20 MByte capacity. It costed a fortune.
Alexander

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IBM PC - 10 meg hard drives as File servers
May 21, 2006 8:57AM PDT

The IBM XT originally came with a full height 10 MByte hard drive. It also came with a full height 360k Floppy drive. For those that don't know what full height is - a modern cdrom occupies half the space of a full height drive.

The original IBM PC came with ONE floppy. You had to swap between your OS floppy and your application floppy.

For those that wonder what we did with such basic machines - we ran a point of sale system for clothing stores where the smaller stores had an IBM XT with a 10 MByte hard drive running as a FILE SERVER. The work stations had no hard drives - they booted off a floppy drive, mounted a shared network drive and everything thereafter was done over the network.

The bigger stores we were forced to spend a fortune on the ultra fast IBM AT with a 20 MByte hard drive.

We ran IBM PC network version 1.0a - we believe to be one of the first pc networks running commercially in the world. Communication was done back to a central site for consolidation on a mainframe via 1200 baud modems(1.2kb per second - no compression).

Yeah, and COBOL ruled at that time.

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1200 Baud?!
May 21, 2006 1:28PM PDT

1200 baud? Heck, I remember having a 300 Baud modem.

(these stories are starting to sound like: when I went to school, we had to walk six miles. Oh yeah, well I had to walk with no shoes in the winter! blah, blah, blah... )

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(NT) (NT) Heck, in the USAF we used 150 baud.. old enough?
May 22, 2006 2:40AM PDT
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Old enough!
May 22, 2006 8:59AM PDT

As a friend of mine used to say to me - most people your age are dead!

Yeah, we bought state of the art because of the volume of data we needed to transmit - pkarc was a godsend when it came out - reduced our transmission times for a file by 90% - transmission for a file was still close to 10 minutes. We lost connection often meaning we had to restart. Telephone companies in those days had no sympathy - you were supposed to talk on the telephone!

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not that old!!
May 22, 2006 12:31PM PDT

hey, i am not that old! only 59.. if you are lucky, you will be there one day too! Happy

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Used to ...
May 23, 2006 3:04AM PDT

run punch card systems. Data was transmitted via a C-141 cargo jet. Wink

and life just went on...and on...and on...

Jack

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(NT) (NT) In the USMC we used runners, " run like the wind, pvt"
May 22, 2006 11:27PM PDT
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Acoustic coupler
May 22, 2006 8:50AM PDT

The first modem that I used did not connect to the telephone line - it had an acoustic coupler that went over the handset. I have no idea what speed it was but I am sure that carrier pigeon was faster.

This is a trip down nostalgia street. It was only last year when I emigrated to Australia from South Africa that I dumped all my old IBM XT drives and network equipment. One thing I did keep was a cd the size of the old LP record. I am sure that there aren't too many of those out there.

(and I only had to ride 5 miles on my horse after milking the cows - just kidding, my dad used to do that and he was born in 1916).