12-02-2013, 08:52 AM
Makes me realise how incredibly cheap such discs are, given the incredibly fine tolerances to which they are designed and engineered. They must actually be fairly robust to stand the handling and mishandling to which they will have been subjected to in their journey from factory to end user. I guess that electro mechanical drives will soon be a thing of the past.
As to price, I put a desktop PC together in 1990, and recall a chum saying ‘take my advice – don’t get a 42mB hard drive – go the whole hog and get a 105mB, then you’ll be future-proofed’. I did take his advice and the drive cost £170, which equates to £340 accounting for historical inflation since. Today, we could buy a half decent laptop for that price with built in wi-fi DVD drive, etc.
At the time, four 1mB simms were used for the RAM, which were then £28.00 each, so that was another £106 (£210 at today’s prices), and that’s before adding the cost of the motherboard, video and sound cards, case, power supply and floppy drive. The uses of the term ‘future proof’ by my chum is yet another example that demonstrates that when we stare into crystal balls, we see more balls than crystals!
I'm amazed at the size of hard drives which have become fairly standard in domestic PCs these days. The drive in my desktop is 300gB, or which 210 gB is free. Of the 90gB, much of it will be programs, but I dare say that much of the rest is dross which could be ditched were I ever to need the space. However, I never download films or very large files, nor do I have thousands of photographs either on the hard drive or DVDs so 300gB is more than I need.
I wonder how much space would have been needed for 1 tB say 25 years ago? Probably a very large room with a very good fire protection system and several staff to maintain it!
As to price, I put a desktop PC together in 1990, and recall a chum saying ‘take my advice – don’t get a 42mB hard drive – go the whole hog and get a 105mB, then you’ll be future-proofed’. I did take his advice and the drive cost £170, which equates to £340 accounting for historical inflation since. Today, we could buy a half decent laptop for that price with built in wi-fi DVD drive, etc.
At the time, four 1mB simms were used for the RAM, which were then £28.00 each, so that was another £106 (£210 at today’s prices), and that’s before adding the cost of the motherboard, video and sound cards, case, power supply and floppy drive. The uses of the term ‘future proof’ by my chum is yet another example that demonstrates that when we stare into crystal balls, we see more balls than crystals!
I'm amazed at the size of hard drives which have become fairly standard in domestic PCs these days. The drive in my desktop is 300gB, or which 210 gB is free. Of the 90gB, much of it will be programs, but I dare say that much of the rest is dross which could be ditched were I ever to need the space. However, I never download films or very large files, nor do I have thousands of photographs either on the hard drive or DVDs so 300gB is more than I need.
I wonder how much space would have been needed for 1 tB say 25 years ago? Probably a very large room with a very good fire protection system and several staff to maintain it!
Regards, David.
BVWS Member.
G-QRP Club Member 1339.
'I'm in my own little world, but I'm happy, and they know me here'
BVWS Member.
G-QRP Club Member 1339.
'I'm in my own little world, but I'm happy, and they know me here'
