# re: Mad Memory Prices @ Monday, September 26, 2005 4:40 PM

I remember a time of 180Kb 5.25" floppy drives - and telling someone, who had just bought a 10Mb winchester hard drive, that he'd never fill it... Nearly on a par with Bill's 'no-one will ever need more than 640Kb of RAM'
Oh - and apart from being the size of a small suitcase the winchester drive cost him about £7000
Dare I suggest that someone out there may remember the 8" floppy drives? :)

ipears

# re: Mad Memory Prices @ Monday, September 26, 2005 9:31 PM

No one seems to remember the 12 inch floppy drives. I didn't see many but they did exist. And I still have a bunch of punch cards. Now how many of you remember why winchester drives got that name?

AlfredTwo

# re: Mad Memory Prices @ Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:48 AM

I used to write programs on punched cards. Using a hand punch. With no letters on top. Those were the days.

As I remember, they were called Winchesters because the IBM factory that made them first was in Winchester. They also used to be called "lunchbox" drives, because some of them were in transparent cases and you could see inside them, and they were around the same size as a lunchbox. I recall being very upset when we got a "winchester" but we couldn't see inside. It ocurred to me later that hard drives work just as well in the dark...

RobMiles

# re: Mad Memory Prices @ Tuesday, September 27, 2005 10:52 AM

Actually the Winchester drives were named after a rifle - the Winchester .30/30. The first drives had a 30MB capacity and a 30 millisecond access time. The first time I saw one I worried about them going bad. How would you replace the drive? Of course because they were sealed they were much more reliable than any other drives that had come before so that turned out not to be an issue.

AlfredTwo

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