Pingdom has got some gorgeous pics of various digital storage media as they appeared in their ancient, prehistoric forms. For example, this lush glamour shot of a Selectron tube (seen above), as it must have appeared in the illustrated versions of many a Robert Heinlein novel, had anyone the genius to make such a wonderful thing. They've got similar snaps of magnetic drums, magnetic tape, punch tape, punch cards, hard drives, floppies, and laser discs. Enjoy.
(Found via reddit.)
Interesting aside: Google one gigabyte over 20 years—the first actual result is this blog post I did a while back. But apparently Google Calculator has some natural language search mojo going, because this is what it spits back, unbidden:
(one gigabyte) over (20 years) = 1.7012776 bytes per second
So, what's the over/under on a sentient PageRank algorithm running for U.S. President? I say 2016, but then, I'm a conservative.
About Jay Garmon
Jay Garmon has a vast and terrifying knowledge of all things obscure, obtuse, and irrelevant. One day, he hopes to write science fiction, but for now he'll settle for something stranger — amusing and abusing IT pros. Read his full profile. You can a...
Full Bio
Jay Garmon has a vast and terrifying knowledge of all things obscure, obtuse, and irrelevant. One day, he hopes to write science fiction, but for now he'll settle for something stranger — amusing and abusing IT pros. Read his full profile. You can also follow him on his personal blog.
