Lunchtime Reflections

Well, here I am at work, finishing lunch (I eat at my desk to leave time for a walk) and wondering whether to pick up a 300GB Maxtor drive at Fry's. They're only $80 this weekend. Since you were wondering, or even if you weren't, the price of a byte of rotating memory has been dropping steadily by a factor of two every year for the last half-century. That's roughly a factor of a quadrillion. If somebody offers you storage as a long-term investment, don't take it.

Now that I've been handed the expense check for last week's OSCON trip, I'm not feeling nearly as impoverished as I was this morning.

Here I am, at least two decades since research conclusively proved that flowcharts were worse than useless as a tool for software design, dusting off a copy of dia so that I can draw some flowcharts. For a software patent, no less. I'm going to need a shower when I get home.

One month shy of 50 years ago

Early IBM disk storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The IBM 350 was part of the IBM RAMAC 305, the computer that introduced disk storage technology to the world on September 4, 1956. RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control." The 350 stored 5 million characters (about 5 megabytes). It had fifty 24-inch diameter disks with 100 recording surfaces. Each surface had 100 tracks. The disks spun at 1200 RPM. Data transfer rate was 8,800 characters per second. Two independent access arms moved up and down to select a disk and in and out to select a recording track, all under servo control. A third arm was added as an option. Several improved models were added in the 1950s. The IBM RAMAC 305 system with 350 disk storage leased for $3,200 per month. The 350 was officially withdrawn in 1969.

The 350's cabinet was 60 inches (approx. 1,52 meters) long, 68 inches (approx. 1,72 meters) high and 29 inches (approx. 74 centimeters) deep. IBM had a strict rule that all its products must pass through a standard 29.5 inch (approx. 75 centimeters) doorway. Since the 350's platters were mounted horizontally, this rule presumably dictated the maximum diameter of the disks.

Shiny!

Shiny Shiny -- a girl's guide to gadgets

I'm not sure I wanted to know about this, but I'm sure there are some people out there in the nearby blogosphere who do.

Amethyst Rose: Sweet Sixteen

It's been more than a year and a half since I had a news server at home, and I haven't been reading alt.callahans much for even longer -- the traffic just got to be too much, and my writing has moved onto LJ and the web for the most part. But I still try to make a post on August 4th. It's odd: I don't make a memorial post for my father, or Colleen's mother, or any of my friends who have passed away. But I make one for Amethyst Rose, who was never part of my life at all. Maybe that's why.

( The post from alt.callahans is behind the cut, since I doubt whether many on my friends list are reading the Usenet these days. I'm not. )

Why does a wispy trace of cadhla's "Pretty Little Dead Girl" flit through my mind at this point? Or was that "Mary O'Meara"? There's much to be said for not taking oneself too seriously. I'm sure Amethyst would agree, if she were here. If she were anything like her sisters, she'd no doubt be telling me to shut up and go to bed.

I need to re-record that song, I think. But not tonight.