data stored in moving rust, was Re: Remembering RAMAC

[Tom Jennings]

OK, Eric was right; while an hour's perusal of a small selection
of books is hardly research, it seems that there are few-enough
root documents to backup Eric's claim that IBM developed the first
disk drive as we know it today. I stand corrected.

My LGP-21 (1963) has a rotating disk but fixed crashed heads. It
seems very likely that it wasn't the first of it's type. It is
easy enough to imagine one existing before RAMAC, though I would
not argue that it's a "disk" in the RAMAC (or modern) sense. It's
simply a recirculating multi-kilo-bit shift register main memory
coincidentally based upon similar technology.


Booth's paper magnetic disk is pretty interesting though. There's
a web page that talks about "Booth's floppy disk" -- this sort of
inane damage is what ruins things.

It wasn't a goddamned floppy goddamned disk. Floppy goddamned
disks are a modern portable removable media, Booth's appears to be
simply the use of paper as a good substrate to apply a magnetic
material.  THere's no indication the paper disk could be removed
from the device. It probably had only one "track". Besides,
floppies aren't made of paper.