Monster IDE Drives

[Alma J Wetzker]

Leon A. Goldstein wrote:
> David Bandel wrote inter alia:
> 
> 
>>My first hard drive was in another state, but I understand it was the
>>size of a stack of phone books (drum memory anyone?).  What I used for
>>local storage was punched paper tape (wound in a figure 8 and hung on
>>the wall).  I had a six foot wide wall for hanging tapes on and thought
>>I had enough storage capacity for all eternity.  The computer terminal
>>had a roll of paper on it (the CRT was just a Television mounted above
>>the terminal that had nothing to do with the operation of the system, it
>>was so we could watch TV while the paper tapes passed data over our 75
>>baud acoustically coupled modems to the mainframe).
>>
> 
> 
> OK, beat this: 1971, Fort Sill, OK.  I got to play with the FADAC field
> artillery ballistic computer.  It was about the size of a steamer trunk.
> 
> It had  magnetic mass storage.  Output was digital through incandescent
> "nixie" tubes or text to a Schmidt Labs teletype.
> Input was also by punched paper tape.  Picture at
> http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-0254.jpg
> Tech details at http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-f.html
> 
> Despite the glowing language about its speed, we could usually beat the
> machine using old-fashioned "charts and darts" and slide rule firing
> tables.

Not sure I can beat any of it.  I grew up using an old buadot teletype that my 
dad got gvmt surplus, when I was tiny.  (He used it sometimes for his ham 
stuff.)  When radio electronics came out with the PC-8 bitter I refitted it to 
use an 8008 and do I/O through the 60 mA loop.  (I learned a fair bit of 
electronics at the same time.)  I remember buying Poly-Paks grab bags.  I 
spent four figures for a new Winchester drive with 5 MB.  I thought I was in 
heaven.  No one else in the whole Jr. high had one.  When Don Lancaster came 
out with his book on using TV's for output, the teletype became a printer.

     -- Alma