Author Topic: Can you read this hard disk platter?  (Read 1630 times)

Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Can you read this hard disk platter?
« on: Monday 04 June 18 16:23 BST (UK) »
At the recent Open Day at The National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, I took this photo.  The notice on it is a sheet of A4 paper, to give it perspective.  It is about 3 feet across, and about a quarter of an inch thick.  I visit the NPL each time it is open to the public, and always photo this disk, usually with a different camera each time.  This time I would have been able to get three copies of the original uncropped photo on it before it was 'full'.

Martin

Offline jim1

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Re: Can you read this hard disk platter?
« Reply #1 on: Monday 04 June 18 18:45 BST (UK) »
3' diameter & only 24 Mb. storage.
To think you could get a 64 Gb. memory stick in the hole in the middle.
I don't think disc trays come that size so it may remain a mystery.
Warks:Ashford;Cadby;Clarke;Clifford;Cooke Copage;Easthope;
Edmonds;Felton;Colledge;Lutwyche;Mander(s);May;Poole;Withers.
Staffs.Edmonds;Addison;Duffield;Webb;Fisher;Archer
Salop:Easthope,Eddowes,Hoorde,Oteley,Vernon,Talbot,De Neville.
Notts.Clarke;Redfearne;Treece.
Som.May;Perriman;Cox
India Kane;Felton;Cadby
London.Haysom.
Lancs.Gay.
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Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: Can you read this hard disk platter?
« Reply #2 on: Monday 04 June 18 18:50 BST (UK) »
It is amazing.  In 1984 I ran the IT department of a small company, from a 29Mb hard disk, that needed 24 10" floppies for a backup that took all night!

Martin

Offline Flattybasher9

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Re: Can you read this hard disk platter?
« Reply #3 on: Monday 04 June 18 19:03 BST (UK) »
Manchester or Birmingham Universities still may have an old English Electric KDF9 computer in their storage.


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Offline andrewalston

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Re: Can you read this hard disk platter?
« Reply #4 on: Monday 04 June 18 22:56 BST (UK) »
It looks like a platter from a DataProducts drive, as was fitted to Atlas at Manchester University in 1965, around the same time as the KDF9. The capacities match. If it is, it will be 31" diameter.

It looks like there's a bit of scoring about a third of the way out from the hub, but the data might still be readable with the right equipment. Modern heads are intended to float a LOT closer to the surface than in those days, but are much more sensitive. It might be possible to float one clear of the surface and detect the patterns.

I don't go back quite that far; I started work a decade later on an ICL 1901T machine with 3 x 60 MB drives. The platters on those were about 18" diameter.

In 1984 I set up my first file server using Microsoft software. It had a 5 MB drive!

There's an interesting aside about computer jargon in France. In their attempt to halt the spread of "franglais", new terms for all things computerish were invented, such as "gestion d'ecran" for "video driver". However, sizes of screens and disks were still measured in inches, because there is a french word "pouce" for an inch. So there was the "disque souple de trois pouces et demi" for a 3.5" floppy disk. They missed a trick, though, because 3.5" is the rough imperial equivalent of EXACTLY 9 cm.

Looking at ALSTON in south Ribble area, ALSTEAD and DONBAVAND/DUNBABIN etc. everywhere, HOWCROFT and MARSH in Bolton and Westhoughton, PICKERING in the Whitehaven area.

Census information is Crown Copyright. See www.nationalarchives.gov.uk for details.

Offline [Ray]

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Re: Can you read this hard disk platter?
« Reply #5 on: Tuesday 05 June 18 09:25 BST (UK) »

As a v.young programmer helping out at the Olympia Business Efficiency Exhibition in 1965, IBM had not long started marketing their new IBM-360-30/40 systems.
IBM salesman talking to his ICL (British) counterpart . . . .

ICL " 360-30? Is that the year it was designed and the number you haved sold?"
IBM " Yes, much like your own 1901 "

"The wise man knows how little he knows, the foolish man does not". My Grandfather & Father.

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