A reminder of how good we really have it

[Charles Kozierok]

Came across a cool vintage picture yesterday while doing research. Really amazed me.

Consider...

8 GB of storage today:

4 GB of storage in 1959:

 

[lenjack]

stunning, but not unexpected.

 

[Ketchup]

Very nice. Really puts things into perspective, especially when we start to think things aren't escalating as quickly as they did a decade ago.

 

[Hulk]

What exactly is the stuff in the old photo?

 

[frostedflakes]

A warehouse full of punch cards it looks like

 

[dma0991]

Old media still has better data retention than current form of storage; cave painting still exist. I doubt a 54 year old thumbdrive would still be usable. Of course, heavy and bulky punch cards are still more susceptible to fires and natural disasters.

What exactly is the stuff in the old photo?

Punch cards for machines that read them back then.

 

[bradley]

This is even more effective and illustrative....

Inside Adam Savage's Cave: Geeking Out about Bits and Bytes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWcIkoqXwg

 

[WelshBloke]

A warehouse full of punch cards it looks like

My dad used to program using those.

We were never short of something to write a shopping list on. 🙂

 

[sandorski]

My dad used to program using those.

We were never short of something to write a shopping list on. 🙂

You probably ruined a lot of good Porn...

 

[WelshBloke]

You probably ruined a lot of good Porn...

😱

Then again even in my early teens I dont think Id need porn enough to try and get the cards in order. 😀

How many cards would it take to get a hi-rez image anyway? :hmm:

 

[Eug]

My first computer had no hard drive, just floppies. 5.25" in fact.

My first hard drive (early 90s) was 25 MB.

 

[sandorski]

😱

Then again even in my early teens I dont think Id need porn enough to try and get the cards in order. 😀

How many cards would it take to get a hi-rez image anyway? :hmm:

Closet full.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

My dad used to program using those.

I started out programming those. :whiste:

(Now, I should say that I was 14 years old and the computer was older than that, but yeah, I'm nearing geezer status. 🙂 )

A typical punch card had 80 columns, so, 80 characters. But some were reserved. Either way.. not much.

It was supermegafun if you dropped a deck and hadn't taken the trouble to number them.

Also supermegafun: the 24 hour compile-run-debug-fix cycle. Really forced you to think ahead....

 

[tommo123]

i was thinking about this kind of thing a few weeks ago. 1st pc was a 166mhz pentium (2?) and what, 32 meg of ram? 1.7GB drive. think that was about 95/96. how much faster are things now? how much more storage do we have?

where will we be in another 20 years? 2PB hard drives? TBs of RAM?

 

[lakedude]

I started out programming those. :whiste:

Me too. :whiste:

 

[StarTech]

i was thinking about this kind of thing a few weeks ago. 1st pc was a 166mhz pentium (2?) and what, 32 meg of ram? 1.7GB drive. think that was about 95/96. how much faster are things now? how much more storage do we have?

where will we be in another 20 years? 2PB hard drives? TBs of RAM?

You are way off. The first IBM PC, if you want to start counting at that point had 64KB of memory and two 5 1/4" diskettes with something like 320KB of capacity.

You could add memory at something like $500 to bring it to 640KB.

With time, IBM released the PC-XT with super fast 80Msec hard drives with a capacity of 5MB. A few years later IBM released the first PC AT with the same memory structure, but came with base 256KB and 20 Msec, 20MB hard drives. Circa 1986.

Fully qualified gizzard here. I worked with punched paper tape and punched cards.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

I think he was saying those were the stats of his first PC.

 

[Ketchup]

I think he was saying those were the stats of his first PC.

Yeah, that's how I read it as well. My first was a 486 DX 33 MHz, with the amazing TURBO button!

 

[rsutoratosu]

my first pc was a trs80 model iii with 16k memory, in B&W with tape deck

 

[Hulk]

Old media still has better data retention than current form of storage; cave painting still exist. I doubt a 54 year old thumbdrive would still be usable. Of course, heavy and bulky punch cards are still more susceptible to fires and natural disasters.


Punch cards for machines that read them back then.

Yeah except if you have to decipher hanging chads, pregnant chads, etc...

(just kidding)

 

[Rakehellion]

Me too. :whiste:

Must have taken forever to fap to Kelly LeBrock pics.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Must have taken forever to fap to Kelly LeBrock pics.

We had paper versions of that too. 🙂

 

[Rakehellion]

Even in our own generation. I just used one of these guys to replace a drive in an iPod Classic.

 

[Minerva]

8GB flash drives are practically promotional giveaways now!

512GB is where it's at!

Still a bit pricey! For this price you could put a 960GB M500 in an enclosure. 😱

It will be nice when microSD cards hit 512GB and 1TB. Decent lossless music collections on phones will be a reality.

 

[erdemali]

Yeah, that's how I read it as well. My first was a 486 DX 33 MHz, with the amazing TURBO button!

Mine was 486 DX40 4 Mb ram 40Mb HDD, I used to uninstall word 6 and install excel just to work with one another. word 6 was 11 3"1/2 diskettes take one out put one in used take about an hour or so. Then I bought 420Mb WD HDD for 420 dollars in 1994.

PS: I think it was 386