[CentOS] Re: Curmudgeoning (was Re: Problems with writing Dual Layer DVD)

Tue Sep 2 21:08:31 UTC 2008
David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net>

On Tue, September 2, 2008 14:31, William L. Maltby wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2008-09-02 at 12:26 -0700, Scott Silva wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>> > Can't argue with you :-)  It does seem likely, as 1GB flash drives
>> wouldn't
>> > have been a possibility at that time.  I never owned one at all until
>> > relatively recently.
>> >
>> I remember when 1 GB *hard* drives didn't exist!
>
> I swear, I'll never use a word like "curmudgeon" again! Sheesh!
>
> Anyway, 5 and 10 MB HDs were the common PC drives back in the 80s and
> 90s. 20MB was a *big* one. Seek (average) of > 60ms was usual and fast
> ones were less than that.

I got my first PC with a 20MB (Seagate ST-225) drive in 1985, they were
fairly affordable by then.  I don't think 5s were even still available in
normal retail channels (a friend, slightly earlier, took some time looking
for a 5 hoping to save some money over a 10MB that was so inconceivably
big, more than he needed, but couldn't find one for sale).  And that was a
half-height 5.25" 20MB drive.

(Today, I couldn't fit two RAW photos from my current DSLR onto that
drive.  And that camera can shoot 5 frames a second and has a 19-shot
internal buffer.  And cost less than half what that first PC cost.)

I'm sure it was in the 80s still when I was using 30MB RLL drives.

Around 1992 I got a 40MB 5.25" full height drive in a new 386-based PC,
and also my first laser printer.

By 1995 I had 3.5" 720MB drives in my PCs.  In the earlier 90s I had
purchased two 300MB drives, 5.25" half height (for $1500 each, sigh). 
Also by 1995 I had my first CD drive (not CD-R, though I went to a seminar
at 3M and saw one; an external SCSI device that sold for only $15,000).

So I think you are lumping together too large a span of time to claim disk
sizes were fairly stable over.




-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info