Thursday, December 31, 2009

Walking Through 50 Years of Hard Disk Drive History - Data Storage

eWeek reports: "IDEMA, the International Disk Drive and Materials Association, hosted its annual DISKCON conference in Santa Clara, Calif., Sept. 23 and 24. Included as a bonus on the show floor was a literal walk down memory lane for older engineers."

If you want to see a visual history of disk storage, check out this slide show. It's really amazing to see how big the original hard drives were, to how small they are now.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

eBay: KIM-1 COMPUTER

There is a pretty rare computer for sale on eBay, its called the KIM-1. Here is a brief quote from Wikipedia "The KIM-1, short for Keyboard Input Monitor, was a small 6502-based microcomputer kit developed and produced by MOS Technology, Inc. and launched in 1975. It was very successful in terms of that period, due to its low price (following from the inexpensive 6502) and easy-access expandability."

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Data Storage, Data Backup and Storage Virtualization: Walking Through 50 Years of Hard Disk Drive History

eWeek reports: "IDEMA, the International Disk Drive and Materials Association, hosted its annual DISKCON conference in Santa Clara, Calif., Sept. 23 and 24. Included as a bonus on the show floor was a literal walk down memory lane for older engineers. This was a display of history-making hard drives, staged by longtime industry analyst and consultant Jim Porter"

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix


From the author of the video:

"This is dedicated to all fans of Queen and hey let's not forget about Mike Myers and Dana Carvey of Wayne's World.

No effects or sampling were used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?)

  • Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound
  • Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar
  • 8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass
  • 3.5 inch Harddrive as the gong
  • HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals.

Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 seperate times for each voice. I wanted to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay $80-$100, I got mine for $30.

I keep hearing parts of the song are out of tune. Keep in mind the scanner and floppy drive are not musical instruments. These are mechanical devices whose motors tend to drift and can cause some notes to be out of tune. "

Monday, March 30, 2009

Gone but not forgotten: 10 operating systems the world left behind

Computerworld reports: "You're not really supposed to love an operating system. It's like your car's hydraulic system, your digestive system or the global financial system. It's supposed to do its job -- and not get in your way while you're doing yours."

Do you remember CP/M, O/S 2, MS-DOS, take a trip back down silicon memory lane...

Thursday, January 22, 2009

CNN: Show us your vintage Macs

CNN iReport: "The Macintosh desktop is turning 25 on Saturday, and we'd love to take a stroll down memory lane. Apple's tiny computer, released in 1984, was different with its uniform design, decidedly un-furry 'mouse' and innovative graphical user interface."

CNN wants you to send them photos and video of you and your vintage Macs. They also want to know:
  • What was your first Mac, and why did you get it?
  • How are you using this device?
  • Are the computers still as mind-blowing now, and how far have they come?