

The Brilliant “Baloney Slicer” That Started the Digital Age - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/the-brilliant-baloney-slicer-that-started-the-digital-age

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ChuckMcM
They have one at the computer history museum, rather large. It is also very
long to spin up or spin down. Not surprisingly it has a crap ton of angular
momentum when it is running.

Always fun to realize that the top engineers of their day, if they were using
the "best system money could buy" had a 5MB hard drive to work with.

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fit2rule
I remember the days when anything over a Megabyte was something you lifted off
the floor, if you could, placed gingerly atop the bundle, took the fly-lid
off, then closed the door, pushed "MOUNT" and stood back.

I think those days still exist, but instead of a trained Wang or Tandem
monkey, we have the spoolbots:
[http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/344314/530wm/T2500330-Comp...](http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/344314/530wm/T2500330-Computer_tape_storage_robot-
SPL.jpg)

I've always wanted to build my own hard-drive - or at the least, mass storage
device, with my own hands. I guess those days will come around again in the
Maker movement, the NSA backlash, and all that ..

