news.bbc.co.uk— So big, you need an aeroplane to move it!In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.
Sep 13, 2006View in Crawl 4
The same way you rotate a tire to make a car move forward. You point the centrifugal force towards the wall.I find it depressing that I try to add an (what I thought to be) interesting piece of article related history, and the smart ass reply gets more diggs.
Like they say pictures are worth a million words. It is amazing to see that huge computer in the picture. Incredible where we are at in time regarding technology!
Centrifugal force points in every direction away from the axis of rotation equally. As one end of the disc is moving towards the wall, the opposite end is equally moving away from it. The "direction" of the rotation is a circle around the axis, and can only be clockwise or counter-clockwise (both of which point both towards and away from the wall at the same time equally) See:<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_velocity">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_velocity</a><a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum</a>To move a car you need to have friction on one edge of the tire (the contact patch with the ground) This friction creates a linear force acting against the torque of the rotating wheel, which is the force which moves the car forward - this actually does not have anything to do with the centrifugal force, and does not apply in a case of a freely spinning HD disc.For best illustration, imagine a car spinning it's wheels on ice, and not moving at all - due to lack of sufficient friction.
The drive in question is not a disk they are drums, similar but not the same, and were not centered within the frames. Forces produced by such a large object on the frames could be very substantial, compounded by the fact that they favored one side.Perhaps a unicycle would be a better example, instead of a car? If the unicycle where floating freely in the air, the rotation of the wheel will want to move the seat in a particular direction -- the forces on the wheel are transferred to the frame (and seat) to move it in a certain direction due to friction. This example is unbalanced (more weight on one side of the wheel then the other) which would cause it to "throw" (to use my original language) itself in a certain way based on the rotation of the wheel and the starting position of the frame/seat.A freely spinning object in space with no friction that is balanced will remain in place. But when an unbalanced frame is attached to the object it will behave in a very different way. The idea of "direction" does begin to exist.Anyway - I like Physics, I'm not a Physicist by any means. My examples, terminology and rationale may suck. But the drives didn't just float in place -- they were mounted in such a way as to make sure they hit the wall, and not you (read: kill you), if they became unbolted.
dborjal007Sep 13, 2006
Wow...amazing how fast PCs have evolved in the last forty years!!!
perkonisSep 13, 2006
Had you quit at the first line, that would have been really funny.
gbersSep 13, 2006
geesh... is this article way off or what. Dvorak blogged this a few days ago and had a different pic of this same drive but said you needed 50 of those drives at 100K each to get up to 5MB. Sounds even more amazing. See Dvorak here...<a class="user" href="http://dvorak.org/blog/">http://dvorak.org/blog/</a> its down the page about half way.... He also lists the source...<a class="user" href="http://www.smartalix.com/hard_drive50.htm">http://www.smartalix.com/hard_drive50.htm</a>Too bad Dvorak is so much like that guy on Stattler on the Muppet Show
moderntenshiSep 13, 2006
I think we've found the iPod killer.
boiler98Sep 14, 2006
The same way you rotate a tire to make a car move forward. You point the centrifugal force towards the wall.I find it depressing that I try to add an (what I thought to be) interesting piece of article related history, and the smart ass reply gets more diggs.
coolbroricanSep 14, 2006
Like they say pictures are worth a million words. It is amazing to see that huge computer in the picture. Incredible where we are at in time regarding technology!
ylphSep 14, 2006
Centrifugal force points in every direction away from the axis of rotation equally. As one end of the disc is moving towards the wall, the opposite end is equally moving away from it. The "direction" of the rotation is a circle around the axis, and can only be clockwise or counter-clockwise (both of which point both towards and away from the wall at the same time equally) See:<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_velocity">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_velocity</a><a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum</a>To move a car you need to have friction on one edge of the tire (the contact patch with the ground) This friction creates a linear force acting against the torque of the rotating wheel, which is the force which moves the car forward - this actually does not have anything to do with the centrifugal force, and does not apply in a case of a freely spinning HD disc.For best illustration, imagine a car spinning it's wheels on ice, and not moving at all - due to lack of sufficient friction.
boiler98Sep 15, 2006
The drive in question is not a disk they are drums, similar but not the same, and were not centered within the frames. Forces produced by such a large object on the frames could be very substantial, compounded by the fact that they favored one side.Perhaps a unicycle would be a better example, instead of a car? If the unicycle where floating freely in the air, the rotation of the wheel will want to move the seat in a particular direction -- the forces on the wheel are transferred to the frame (and seat) to move it in a certain direction due to friction. This example is unbalanced (more weight on one side of the wheel then the other) which would cause it to "throw" (to use my original language) itself in a certain way based on the rotation of the wheel and the starting position of the frame/seat.A freely spinning object in space with no friction that is balanced will remain in place. But when an unbalanced frame is attached to the object it will behave in a very different way. The idea of "direction" does begin to exist.Anyway - I like Physics, I'm not a Physicist by any means. My examples, terminology and rationale may suck. But the drives didn't just float in place -- they were mounted in such a way as to make sure they hit the wall, and not you (read: kill you), if they became unbolted.
Closed AccountMar 21, 2009
5MB? I could write more data with a pen on the back of my hand.
Closed AccountMar 21, 2009
Also, that's not a lot of porn.
discolandoJun 10, 2009
Necro.