The Insomniac Coder
Computer History Museum Photo Gallery: weird, fascinating photos including a giant Cray, and a 60Kg hard drive > Gallery > PC Authority
These disk platters are from the 60s and 70s — IBM first created the magnetic disk for secondary storage in 1956, and the first model used 5 platters to store 5MB of data. The technology is not too dissimilar to that used today, though there are obviously some improvements in storage capacity.
I am old enough that I got to work with a variant of the platter on the top right corner during my US Army enlistment (1992-1997). These came in transparent disk packs with a handle on top, and they were horribly delicate. When these got ruined, some of my artistically inclined coworkers would engrave them with mostly space/IT themes (we were a satellite communications unit). These were hung around our operation centers and contractor offices.

Computer History Museum Photo Gallery: weird, fascinating photos including a giant Cray, and a 60Kg hard drive > Gallery > PC Authority

These disk platters are from the 60s and 70s — IBM first created the magnetic disk for secondary storage in 1956, and the first model used 5 platters to store 5MB of data. The technology is not too dissimilar to that used today, though there are obviously some improvements in storage capacity.

I am old enough that I got to work with a variant of the platter on the top right corner during my US Army enlistment (1992-1997). These came in transparent disk packs with a handle on top, and they were horribly delicate. When these got ruined, some of my artistically inclined coworkers would engrave them with mostly space/IT themes (we were a satellite communications unit). These were hung around our operation centers and contractor offices.

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