
Interior Views of the Central Social Institution in Prague, 1937 - siberianbear
https://www.vintag.es/2020/01/central-social-institution-prague.html
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zaroth
Each human sits on a contraption that can move the human in front of the
desired cabinet, within some subrange of the overall storage unit.

These crazy elevator things must be able to move left and right to some degree
as well as up and down, right?

It seems crazy that this solution would achieve a faster seek time than some
sort of conveyor belt moving a human just left and right in front of a normal
height stack.

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mannykannot
Or mount the drawers for each pair of columns in a paternoster elevator
arrangement (but not running continuously.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster)

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coldcode
So that's where Futurama got the idea. These pictures seem perfect for a
dystopian sci-fi nightmare.

~~~
dariusj18
It's like a visualization of an HDD.

~~~
sorokod
or like a search tree

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yread
Looks terribly dangerous with people walking around the counterweights

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paol
I found the counterweights baffling. Why would they make them protrude like
that, creating a hazard when they move.

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namibj
I think these actually contain either mechanics for pulling on the drawer or
take up part of the drawer (depending on how deep they are).

They would not have build a counterweight in that shape, just because it
requires far more space behind the unit than a more compact one.

~~~
DoctorOetker
they might contain a small conveyor belt as an IO port for the paperwork for
the people at the table in the center?

Then the people in the conveyor belt function like a HDD controller, they get
the requested blocks of paperwork, and then a ground level person takes the
blocks of paper work to the table or vice versa...

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lajosbacs
It apparently still exists

[https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/devet-tisic-supliku-
obs...](https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/devet-tisic-supliku-obsahuje-
udaje-temer-vsech-obyvatel-cr-209020)

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hootbootscoot
Now THAT is a DBMS!

Or maybe it's a hard drive controller replete with human read/write heads...?

