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January 14, 2004

Barriers II

I was just showing this post to a colleague (and of course the picture here).

He, being young and innocent in the ways of old geeks, was not fast enough to escape the story when he expressed disdain for my enthusiasm: "What's the big deal?" he asked. "How big is it?" and "It looks like a Mac thing". You, my captive audience will now have to suffer through the same story (unless you quickly go and click on a link or something - don't say you weren't warned).

Many years ago when the 386 was a big thing and most people were debating 286 vs V20 chips I was working for a fellow who used to dabble in the PC business. We provided services to a large pathology lab and also maintained various computer systems. To keep our hands in we did SCO work (it was SCO Xenix then) and built PC's from components for people. When asked we would usually provide a "trade-in". In this case, a woman rang up and was very concerned about the trade-in part. I think we offered $20 or something similar. Build the new machine, installed software and delivered it. Picked up the old bomb - it was a dual 5.25" (full height with those click down latches that would destroy your disks) and the old hercules graphic-capable green monitor (see picture). Loaded the stuff in the back of a Mazda 626 and started to leave. The woman ran after us and complained that we hadn't taken all the parts. Huh?

She led us back inside and pointed to a box next to the filing cabinet. It was about three feet high, two feet deep and 18" wide (from memory) and it weighed about 100 tonnes (or at least felt like it). It was a real live, genuine, hard disk - all 10Mb of it (I think it was a TallGrass Winchester Drive but I could be mistaken). First problem was that we could not shift it an inch. Second problem was how to load it ito the car. We gave up. The woman protested that we had to remove it. The boss gave her another $20 and she was happy.

Now if I can remember when 10Mb was that big, don't I have the right to get excited about 1 Tb in a desktop case?

Maybe I should bore you with the story of the 105 Mb Quantum disks with stiction problems - then again perhaps another day.....

P.S. I looked all over the place for a picture of this sucker but didn't find it. Found some other cool stuff though - for another day.

Posted by Ozguru at January 14, 2004 07:01 PM

Comments

I had a computer built for me - late 80s maybe? - it was a 386 IBM compatible. I sat in the shop all day and watched 2 guys build it from the bottom up. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen (at that time) and your post reminded me of that. It wasn't a TB in a desktop, but back then I was so excited about my computer you'd think I was getting a supercomputer :-)

Posted by: Cindy at January 14, 2004 07:01 PM

My first computer was a hand me down 386, with a propensity to crash if you played Tetris.

Posted by: Da Goddess at January 14, 2004 07:01 PM