Hardware Bible

When all the world and computers were young, the long-term memory of the best computer systems was entrusted to 3.5x8.5-inch sheets of cardboard, punched with rectangular holes, each one storing a single code symbol, a whole card holding about a sent...

A hard disk is more like the desk and office of a writer, who in his few lucid moments between delirium tremens and alcoholic stupor crafts work of unparalleled insight and beauty from the scribbled notes, torn-out newspaper stories, yellowing magazi...

Microprocessors might be 10,000 times faster than they used to be. Hard disks might hold 10,000 times more bytes. But today's basic floppy disk hardly holds about the same amount of data as the very first. Although the floppy disk has shrunk from eig...

was the first magnetic mass storage system used in computers, harking back to the days of room-size Univacs and vacuum tubes. It first proved itself as a convenient alternative to punched cards and punched paper tape—the primary storage system used b...