Digital technology evolution

Struth, mass storage was a lot cheaper in May 1978:

:-)

Don...

--
Don McKenzie
E-Mail Contact Page:               http://www.dontronics.com/e-mail.html

Crystal clear, super bright OLED LCD (128x128) for your microcontroller.
Simple serial RX/TX interface. Many memory sizes.
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/product.php?productid=16460

Mass storage?

Andy Wood snipped-for-privacy@trap.ozemail.com.au

Something wrong there. I bought my first IBM clone PC around 1981. A top range AT running at a blinding 8 MHz. 40 MB hard drive. 14" color monitor. Total cost AU$3400. A lot dearer than the couple of Apple II machines I had before then, but a big step up.

--
Regards,

Adrian Jansen           adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net
Design Engineer         J & K Micro Systems
Microcomputer solutions for industrial control
Note reply address is invalid, convert address above to machine form.

The 10Meg ad. of Bob's refers to S100 bus, Z80m and CPM, which was a little before the XT and clones appeared. Not much before, but it was prior.

81 saw the Dick Smith Challenger compatible. Was that what you got Adrian?

Don...

Don McKenzie E-Mail Contact Page:

Crystal clear, super bright OLED LCD (128x128) for your microcontroller. Simple serial RX/TX interface. Many memory sizes.

It wasnt the DSE clone. Put together by a small company in Adelaide. I have no idea now what the motherboard was. And yes, it might have been

82, not 81.

-- Regards,

Adrian Jansen adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net Design Engineer J & K Micro Systems Microcomputer solutions for industrial control Note reply address is invalid, convert address above to machine form.

Could it have been a Chendi? was very popular at that time.

I know, they started to come out of the wood work around 81-82. It was really the start of the Asian PC invasion that continues today.

Don...

--
Don McKenzie
E-Mail Contact Page:               http://www.dontronics.com/e-mail.html

Crystal clear, super bright OLED LCD (128x128) for your microcontroller.
Simple serial RX/TX interface. Many memory sizes.
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/product.php?productid=16460

I don't think it's wrong, we were still buying 25M winchester and Lark drives (removable packs) in 1985/6 for this kind of price for mainframe storage. They were about the size of a slab and easily as heavy. Then the PC, SUN and MAC revolution hit us in about '87 along with networking and distributed computing. No need for a huge machine room with special floors and aircon and big tape drives and washing machines anymore.

. . .

Are you using "washing machine" as a generic term, or do you really mean the IBM 2321 Data Cell, aka the "noodle picker" or "noodle snatcher"?

Those were pretty rare - I never got to see one in action. I did however see an equally bizarre device made by NCR - the CRAM.

Andy Wood snipped-for-privacy@trap.ozemail.com.au

Nothing like the scream of stacked MFM drives :)

not 1981 with those specs.

Bye. Jasen

I built up Steve Ciarcia's Micromint SB180 in mid 80's and a 20Mb NEC low profile 5-1/4" MFM HDD set me back about $AU580.

I remember buying one very early 8088 clone 1980>81 basic machine with no hd and a dot matrix amd amber screen was 2k then the hard drive ( a huge 5 meg was another 1k plus and luckily I had a copy os dos 2.0 all whole sale in 1982 I bought a colour cga for around $450.00

**Nah. Closer to 1985, I'd guess. 80286 (AT class) was not available until well past the middle of the decade anyway. A 40MB hard drive in a PC clone in 1981? No chance. Even by 1986, the 20MB Seagate was the standard fitting in PCs up to about $3k. I paid around $500.00 for mine in 1986.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

computing.

Generic. I think they were probably DEC RP04's or RP06's.

I do remember a nasty head crash on one of them, where the head launching solenoid slammed the head stack into the side of the disk. Not pretty.

I bought a 320gb HHH yesterday for $130!!! I remember when a computer owner had a HDD they were a yuppy!

I also remember clearly my dads factory full of CNC machines running off punch cards with the infamous nixie tubes.

The first PC-AT's were announced by IBM in 1984 for $6000 IBM PC's OTOH were announced in 1981, with the first clone in June 1982

I worked for a Totalizator company that went from electro-mechanical computers, to DEC PDP and Vaxes, to Alpha minis, during the time I was there.

The company name also changed over the years, was ATL (Sydney), and ended up as Tabcorp. During the journey, was owned by AWA and the Smorgon family at one stage.

Here is some of the early gear I actually worked on.

and this was an Australian invention to boot. Main page is at:

I get a small mention down near the bottom of:

Don...

--
Don McKenzie
E-Mail Contact Page:               http://www.dontronics.com/e-mail.html

Crystal clear, super bright OLED LCD (128x128) for your microcontroller.
Simple serial RX/TX interface. Many memory sizes.
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/product.php?productid=16460

Would you know gary elliot by any chance? I did a stint with TabCorp after they bought out Jupiters. Jupiters purchased AWA before that. Gary (from AWA), top guy had plenty of stories to tell about old tote systems.

You are a sad man, tote walls and all!!!