Hint: picture was taken in 1956...
Answer below...
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
It's a hard disk drive back in 1956... with 5 MB of storage.
In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC,
the first 'SUPER' computer with a hard disk drive (HDD).
The HDD weighed over a ton and stored a 'whopping' 5 MB of data.
Do you appreciate your 8 GB memory stick a little more now?
THAT WAS SOME 54 YEARS AGO............WHAT IS TO BE 50 YEARS IN THE FUTURE??????????????????
Note: I did not guess correctly.
Thanks to Doug.
Mamie Eisenhower and luggage being loaded into a Pan Am Flight (for a short international trip after a long night)
ReplyDeleteI thought it was the rolling bar!
ReplyDeleteTo think you can now carry the equivalent of 5000 of these things on you keychain.
54 years ago, I graduated from high school. We had no computers in my school.
ReplyDeleteFirst guess was JFK being loaded at Dallas.
ReplyDeleteLapin, really! That was in 1963.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a spool of industrial wire.
I didn't guess right either, but I do remember those behemoths. The first computer I saw was in 1957 and it took up the whole basement of the physics department.
ReplyDeleteAmelia, I never actually saw a computer around that time, but I remember the vast size from pictures.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same as Tobias -- the bar
ReplyDeleteI thoght I was the meal palet... they had real meals on real plates with stainless utensils back then!
ReplyDelete...they had real meals on real plates with stainless utensils back then!
ReplyDeleteJoanna, yes. I flew to New York City around 1960, and I got all dressed up, and we had leg room, arm room, and a real meal. Those were the flying days!
When I went to work at my first real job, we had a 305 Ramac. I never worked with it as shortly after I arrived we got a 1401 with a Ramac with much larger capacity. We also got some of the first pizza ovens with removable disk packs when they came out. Kinda fun to have been around long enough to really appreciate this machine in my lap.
ReplyDeleteAnd the family's first flight was in a Capitol Airlines DC2? to Washington DC in 1948. Friends were appalled the whole family went together. What if something happened? Nothing did but I have vague memories of having to walk uphill when the plane was on the ground as well as seeing the cockpit in flight. All the kids on board got to go into the cockpit and we all got metal wings.
Wow, Piskie, you go far back into the history of computers, pizza ovens and flying.
ReplyDeleteI'm only slightly behind you in age, you know. Still young and adventurous tho, aren't we?
ReplyDeleteWheee! Yes, indeed!
ReplyDeleteIf the rest of us could only keep up with you gals.
ReplyDeleteToday I put a fresh 4GB chip in my camera, thin as a credit card and smaller than a postage stamp. My, my, my.
Ah, the good old days of vacuum tubes and magnetic tape, and computers the size of buildings that do what my desktop does today, and much more slowly.
ReplyDeleteTruly, it's amazing how tiny all the computer parts are today. Cathy had her Notebook with her on the trip, and it's light and small, but it does the job.
ReplyDelete