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Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil

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Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:

> Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> writes:
>> Most of us have more processing power on our desktops right now than
>> entire university or enterprise computer centers had in the 60s and
>> early 70s [...]
> 
> Are you kidding?  I have more computing power *under the skin of my left
> shoulder* than an entire university or company had in the 1960s.
> 
> Taking "on our desktops" literally, all I have on my desktop at the
> moment (not counting whatever is built into my monitors) is a quad-core
> Snapdragon 800 with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB flash.  On the floor of my home
> office, on the other hand, I have more computing power and storage than
> a medium-sized industrialized country had in the 1960s.
> 

Since we are going into ancient history I have to mention my favorite.  
While I was in grad school we got our hands on a surplus IBM disk drive.  
The maintenance tools included an adjustable wrench and a bag of rags for 
the times we had to work on the head positioning mechanism as it was 
hydraulic and prone to leaks.  It had 36 inch platters about .25 inches 
thick and spun fast enough we considered asking for hazard pay to work 
around it.  I forget the exact data capacity but it was in the megabyte 
range.  Still, it was a step up from drum memory...

-- 
Will Honea

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the days of punch cards and coding in pencil RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-28 14:31 +0000
  Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-04-28 17:15 +0100
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-04-28 11:02 -0600
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-04-28 18:30 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Scion <a.b@nospam.invalid> - 2014-04-29 10:08 +0000
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-04-28 20:55 +0000
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-04-28 20:19 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-04-28 20:45 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 17:49 +0200
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-05-01 20:25 +0100
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-05-01 21:01 +0000
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 23:16 +0200
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2014-04-28 20:10 +0000
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-04-28 20:58 +0000
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil despen@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) - 2014-04-28 16:59 -0400
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2014-04-30 09:51 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Adrian <bulleid@ku.gro.lioff> - 2014-04-30 19:02 +0100
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-04-30 22:05 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-01 08:15 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-05-01 15:59 +0100
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 17:45 +0200
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-01 19:06 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-05-01 13:27 -0600
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-01 20:37 +0100
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2014-05-01 20:08 +0000
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-05-01 22:15 +0100
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@des.no> - 2014-05-02 12:58 +0200
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-05-02 12:36 -0600
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 22:59 +0200
  Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2014-04-29 12:54 +1000
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil despen@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) - 2014-04-29 10:19 -0400
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 18:01 +0200
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 18:56 +0200
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Chris J Dixon <chris@cdixon.me.uk> - 2014-05-02 08:59 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-02 10:57 +0100

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