17 March 2010

Like, random

Kyle VanHemert introduces the IBM RAMAC 305, the first commercial computer to use magnetic disk storage (and one of IBM’s last systems to use vacuum tubes). The 305 was announced on 13 September 1956, my one-month birthday.

The post embeds a really sweet 5-minute industrial from IBM promoting the system: check out the access panels that swing out and down to afford access to the copperage. The post conflates the 305 (the model number of the entire system) with the 350 (the model number of the 50-platter hard disk subsystem), but no matter.

(Link via The Code Project.)

No comments: