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Picture of a 5MB Hard Disk in 1956

popular-pics.com — Look how a 5MB Hard Disk was like 50 years ago!!!!

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  • iching, on 10/12/2007, -11/+66The picture shows them placing it in an IBM laptop computer
    .
    I know, not really, but I think the that is the size that a laptop would be at that time.
    We have come a long way.
    • Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -46/+15Wow, computers have really come a long way.
    • DarkLance, on 10/12/2007, -3/+100That would the IBM Mobile Computer, AKA "Plane"
    • thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -39/+4These guys would shart themselves if they knew an iPod has 80 gigs.

      and for those not familiar with shart
      http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shart
    • PowerCow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+52it would probably take up less space to just print the data
      thats 5 million bytes.. thats like a couple steven king novels.. of plain text.
    • xOCxKILLSx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Wouldn't it just be easier to write down all your data in a note book . come on 5 megs is like 300 pages of data.
      www.setecinvestigations.com/resources/techhints/Pages_per_Gigabyte.pdf
      edit : PowerCow beat me to it....
    • dotuplink, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I got a bunch of those all compressed into one and hanging over my neck. Soon kids in the future will have 100 Tb just hanging over their necks too.
    • cbbspike, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Yes, it would take less physical space to print out those 5MB, but you would not be able to process the printed data. Plus a 5MB piece of data on discs instead of magnetic tape or punched cards would process much faster.
    • sockpuppets, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1Four !!!!
    • ChileanGoD, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@dotuplink ....And it will still not be enough.
    • DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4dfick- He means humanity. Duh.
    • RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8If you look closely enough you can see the stored data on the platters /rimshot

      I'll be here all weekend folks.
    • Wootery, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4@thatsmyaibo

      Some points to bear in mind in the future :

      1 : Few diggers know what "shart" means (I would guess)

      2 : Knowing what "shart" means does not make you look clever

      3 : A joke you do not fully understand it unlikely to be funny
    • ZLonePharaoh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I bet this Harddisk was intended to this computer
      http://www.digg.com/hardware/How_scientists_of_1954_imagined_the_Home_Computer_to_today
  • daveddd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+39It's really shows my age, but I remember those!
    • Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23So do I. I mean I just looked at the picture. How could I forget it so soon?
    • mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Well, at least I'm younger than someone here. I was a mere infant at the time that drive was launched.
    • drwtsn32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+44What sucks is that it was only 4.7MB after formatting. What a ripoff!
    • leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Who would have guessed that by now we would have a gig of ram in our telephones.
    • firepowered, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10and 50 Years later, they will be laughing at us for using HDD.
  • LemurHorde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+43I was looking at the article in Wiki and I found this interesting tidbit...

    "the entire RAMAC unit weighed over a ton and had to be moved around with forklifts and delivered via large cargo airplanes. According to Munce, while the storage capacity of the drive could have been increased above five megabytes, the marketing department at IBM was against a larger capacity drive because they didn't know how to sell a product with more storage."
    Is that because of the size or because they thought 5 MB should be enough for anybody?
    • zweben, on 10/12/2007, -2/+62Probably that 5MB was enough for everybody. Try and fill up 5MB with unformatted text files.
    • raisinbrainMMM, on 10/12/2007, -4/+35"the marketing department at IBM was against a larger capacity drive because they didn't know how to sell a product with more storage."

      They should have asked Sony! Zing!
    • sylentmode, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3They didn't have competition, so why would they spend more money to develop a higher capacity drive......then nobody would want to buy the 5 gig.

      Similar to why intel sold celerons....same technology as the pentiums with components disabled.....but the reason they sold them as because they actually had competition.
    • ThreeDee912, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@sylentmode

      It's 5MB as in Megabytes!

      I can't believe that a HD back then was THAT huge!
    • aposter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The thing is that it wasn't a disk drive as we think of them today, it was actually a drum storage unit. There wern't a set of flat platters, it was a cylinder whos outer surface was coated with the storage medium.
    • pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@aposter:
      Nope, that's a stack of platters, just like one of today's drives. Just more platters and orders of magnitude less capacity.
  • mrbobo34, on 10/12/2007, -3/+39Without the lame watermark:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/technology_enl_1158142314/html/1.stm
    • wolfkeeper, on 10/12/2007, -21/+4I was looking at a USB keyring flash drive in my local supermarket earlier today. It cost £9, so it cost much less than this disk, stored 50x more data than this disk, used less power than this disk and probably operated faster than this disk. :-)

      And you didn't need a forklift to carry it to the checkout.
    • Vokas, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Yeah that watermark was really getting in my way of enjoying the pic, thanks!
  • niteskunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Dugg! I love retro electronics.
  • Luigi239, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16My god, that's awesome.

    We take it for granted that we now have 160gb dirves that weigh practically nothing. But then agian, ten years from now, a terabyte will sound like nothing.
    • ImTheDarkcyde, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1410 years from now a terabyte will definately still be 'something', maybe todays gigabyte, but untill a programming language becomes that unopotomized and innefficiant, a one terabyte program is useless

      not to mention the time and resources to make a program that big, no matter what time period
    • DarkLance, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22But think of all the porn you can put on there! Or ill-gotten media!
    • coldphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11@Darkcyde

      Who fills up hdd's with just programs? He's saying with the advancements in technology, a terabyte won't even seem like that much in 10 years, and that statement is already becoming true. Its not that we will be using programs that take up more space, simply be technologically advancing simply because we can. Trust me, the consumer will find a way to fill all that space too. I myself could always use more room for storing all my movies, music, and pictures--programs are a very small part of a hdd.
    • junkmail02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6umm a terabyte will be nothing in 10 years. think of all the space uncompressed HD 1080i video takes up.
    • kd1s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Imagine our surprise to learn that our new Dell server used 2.5" hard drives. Of course it means we can snap eight drives into a 2U chassis so we're happy.
  • lmarburg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+33what can you store with 5 MB these days...

    50 years from now we will look back at a terabyte and laugh
    • oyourmom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32We'll laugh at a terabyte on a Flash Drive.
    • zooradley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22we'll laugh at flash drives
    • pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+65We'll just be laughing, constantly, all the time. Laughing will be the new breathing.
    • junkmail02, on 10/12/2007, -27/+5we will laugh at human beings
    • NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30"we will laugh at human beings"

      Well done, you ruined it.
    • EndofEternity, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2We will be laughing at god (hopefully).
    • zacuke, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I'm laughing right now.
    • ambushxx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2The computers will be laughing at us...
  • ForlornHope, on 10/12/2007, -5/+195 meg ought to be enough for anybody.
  • NathanFerris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Well without the trusty 5 meg hard drive where would we be? Without that we wouldn't of got to the stage we're at!
  • D4RKfantasy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18A tera-byte now is pretty much nothing. I could fill it up pretty quick with 1080i Tv shows.

    Japan has a peta-byte storage system already, next is exa-bytes, yotta-bytes, etc.
    • clackerd, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21yotta bites: back up or do not back up, there is no storing to gmail
    • Larke2000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8i wish i could digg clackerd's comment twice. 1 for the funny, and 1 for the star wars reference. :)
    • grafenberg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1then me dugg it for you. :-)
  • clackerd, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16seriously, this reminds me of when the first CD's came out. they were much larger, black, and instead of a laser they used a needle. the first discmans had to be worn on your back, and don't even think about jogging while listening to your music.
  • bgreen00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+43I hear that's plug and play compatible with Vista
  • jaydog3199, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3wow, really shows how far we've come
  • techforce, on 10/12/2007, -27/+3Sorry, this is a duplicate.

    http://digg.com/hardware/The_first_hard_disk_50_years_ago
    http://digg.com/hardware/CAN_YOU_GUESS_YOU_CANT
    http://digg.com/hardware/First_Computer_with_Hard_Disk
    http://digg.com/hardware/First_Computer_with_a_5MB_Hard_Drive_Photo

    Plus countless more... ( http://digg.com/search?area=all&age=365&sort=new&s=hard+1956&submit=Search)

    But this hard disk blows my mind whenever I see it.
  • Rockyrowks, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Today, that would hold over 160 TB, according to Moores law
  • Porkchoppa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13lol, not exactly portable. I wonder how fast it was and how much it cost back then.

    http://www.cedmagic.com/history/ibm-305-ramac.html

    Did some research and it looks like it could be used for a $35,000 annual fee to IBM.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305

    Timing

    All timing signals for the 305 were derived from a factory recorded Clock Track on the drum. The clock track contained 816 pulses 12 µs apart with a 208 µs gap for sync.

    Reading or writing a character took 96 µs.

    The 305's typical instruction took three revolutions of the drum (30ms): one (I phase) to fetch the instruction, one (R phase) to read the source operand and copy it to the core buffer, and one (W phase) to write the destination operand from the core buffer. If the P field (Program exit code) was not blank, then two (D phase and P phase) additional revolutions of the drum (20ms) were added to the execution time to allow relays to be picked. The Improved Processing Speed option could be installed that allowed the three instruction phases (IRW) to immediately follow each other instead of waiting for the next revolution to start; with this option and well optimized code and operand placement a typical instruction could execute in as little as one revolution of the drum (10ms).

    Certain instructions though took far longer than the typical 30ms to 50ms. For example, multiply took six to nineteen revolutions of the drum (60ms to 190ms) and divide (an option) took ten to thirty seven revolutions of the drum (100ms to 370ms). Input/Output instructions could interlock the processor for as many revolutions of the drum as needed by the hardware.
  • EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That truly was a staggering amount for the time. In 1983 (27 years later) I got the 360k floppy drive for my Atari 800 and I was the envy of all my geek friends. Hard drives on PCs were still virtually unheard of.
  • night141, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Awesome. They had an Xbox prototype back in the 50's!
  • MaXPL, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8"10 years from now a terabyte will definately still be 'something', maybe todays gigabyte, but untill a programming language becomes that unopotomized and innefficiant, a one terabyte program is useless

    not to mention the time and resources to make a program that big, no matter what time period"

    wtf are you talking about?

    you must be a little boy on digg who knows nothing about technology.
    storage is mainly for personal media such as mp3 and movies. why do you think we'll need terabyte size programs?
    • PowerCow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9for my holographic display
    • PowerCow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7No really I remember my first 200mb hd, i thought i would never fill it. Just a little over a year later i had my first gig drive.. no way would i fill that.. then i had a 40 giger.. i can actually keep stuff and no way i would fill it.. then a 200 gigger.. just recently got over 300 gigs for less than $100 and i am not deluded that i cant fill it as i already have more than that filled.
      IF they can make it, it will be used.
    • paulmdx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"why do you think we'll need terabyte size programs?"

      Tell that to Microsoft. Vista requires HOW much disk space?! ;-)

      @PowerCow: That's why when I buy storage I buy the largest disk I can, because even though I can't fill it now, you can bet I'll be able to soon.
    • jma06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0> No really I remember my first 200mb hd, i thought i would never fill it. Just a little over a year later i had my first gig drive.. no way would i fill that.. then i had a 40 giger.. i can actually keep stuff and no way i would fill it.. then a 200 gigger.. just recently got over 300 gigs for less than $100 and i am not deluded that i cant fill it as i already have more than that filled.
      > IF they can make it, it will be used.

      Data expands to fill the space available to it.
      That's one of the adaptation of Murphy's Law.
  • PowerCow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29What they dont tell you, is those are really reallly tiny people.
  • shad0w, on 10/12/2007, -17/+5http://digg.com/hardware/First_Computer_with_a_5MB_Hard_Drive_Photo
    http://digg.com/hardware/World%E2%80%99s_First_Hard_Drive_-_1956
    http://digg.com/tech_news/A_Picture_History_of_Hard_Drives

    How many times do we need to see the worlds first hard drive?
  • ahcomeon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10What's with the "Let us start appreciating" BS? The only one allowed to appreciate my 4GB jump drive is me!
  • cipher64, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10and if somebody forgot to tie the ropes around it?
  • pinky24, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5now you can buy this: http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-USD5G-5GB-Microvault-Pro-Portable-USB-Drive_W0QQitemZ170048029038QQcmdZViewItem
  • pinehurst, on 10/12/2007, -9/+0please stop diggin the same lame stuff over and over. and please no more personal top ten lists.
  • justice7, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4"All anyone will ever need is 640K of RAM"
    • Curufir, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17"All anyone will ever need is a quote that's actually real"
    • DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5He was quoting himself, therefore, it's real.
    • astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The real quote was 'MS-DOS is all anyone will ever need.'
    • PhantomZmoove, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Hey, I liked DOS!
    • justice7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ignorant trolls

      you can't just get the gist of a quote?

      digg is turning into the site of arrogant wannabe techie teenagers
  • jordn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ bgreen00

    yeah I heard this is a supported device for Windows ReadyBoost, too.
  • anon48654, on 11/15/2007, -0/+2I wouldn't doubt that computers have taken more man-hours to engineer than just about everything else mankind has invented.
    • molochi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah it wouldn't surprise me either, but since most of the people who've ever lived are still alive, it's just what we're focused on right now. Given the current growth of 3rd world countries I predict that by 2100 most of mankind's engineering time will have been devoted to reinventing the ox yoke or the pointy stick.
  • hypercube33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I dont even have to read this, not really exciting. I'ts probably the first hard drive - the Refrigerator!
  • abxy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6"50 years ago we'd have you upside down with 5mb up your ass" --Comso Kramer
  • counterplex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Definitely an interesting comparison. Considering the fact that the rate of progress is increasing exponentiallly, I can't imagine where we'd be in 5 years much less in 55 years!

    On another note, does the PAA imply PanAm? If so, there's another time capsule :)
  • ziki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yes I have my essay, it's on my portable hard drive, let me just unload it....
  • biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just curious what it would have cost.

    Has anyone gotten Linux running on it? Linux runs on everything else.
    • lcmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Someone posted it above, $35k annually to IBM
    • friday06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3it's a hd, not a computer...
  • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2evil Pan-American Airlines, trying to destory Howard Hughes
  • lozadaj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What are you talking about. Pan Am is alive!
    http://flickr.com/photos/lolowar/267445923/
  • psyno, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Old news... dugg.
  • Envx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have one of those lying around somewhere
  • LinuxGalore, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4After 30 years and 20 billion dollars of investment the US war dept has designed its first games console for the soldiers in action and is now making deliveries.
  • GhostFace2K, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5...the 50's version of the one-song Ipod... apple scratched it because of "portability" issues (and because the mp3 codec hadn't been invented yet)
    • Hindu_Wardrobe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Aaand Apple wasn't even founded yet.. :P
  • cwestside, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2what do we keep recycling story's? i seen this about a month ago already.
  • critchmac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Can you imagine what it cost to cool that thing per year?
  • JAGUART, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Hehe. You all laugh, but that's what Vista is going to make your current hardware look and feel like.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1With Vista, I was optimistic, expecting to get at least 286-level performance from my Quad Core Q6700 Extreme, this is very disappointing!
  • DiggDug07, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the future pwns the past... i hope >_>
  • brokoli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3does anyone have any idea about the read/write speed?
    • pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18,800 7-bit characters per second.
  • user777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3certain things do become smaller with age.
  • mikeazorin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The new iPod colossus. Holds 1 and a half songs.
  • cosmotic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2As if the hundreds of other super-lame 'old hard disk' posts weren't enough, yet another! Thanks man, Thank you so much for showing to me that technology improves over time. I wouldn't have believed it if you didn't post this not-at-all-redundant post.
  • JoeB4ever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Buy two of them and you could run them in Raid
  • joe3165, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Hard drive? I thought it was a Sirius Satellite Receiver!
    WOCKA WOCKA!
  • saintdesy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What the hell? Was each bit recorded on a one cm^2 area? If you give me a bunch of iron and a buttload of refrigerator magnets and a pair of scissors, I could encode more than five MB in a space that size.
    • pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some simple math indicates that it actually stored around 70 bits in a square centimeter, but good luck with your project.
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