…you begin to notice the pace of change kicked in the after burners. (or, rather, how many forms of technology you have known.)
I suppose I’m more in the know regarding technology because I’m old (50) and I do have a collection of antique computers (from the 70’s onward – anything older is just too darn big to collect!) Forms of media for storing data. These are the forms I know and have used to store data:
- Random Access Memory (RAM, turn the computer off and it’s all lost)
- Flash RAM (keeping data with power off, began in EEPROMS and later could be rewritten – think BIOS)
- Cassette (first computer, the built-in counter became very important when storing multiple programs)
- Punch Cards (freshman in college)
- Green Bar Tractor Fed Paper (sophomore in college, not erasable, but vital when turning in homework)
- 5.25″ Floppy Disk (high school and upgraded first computer)
- 8″ Floppy Disk (first job using a computer used these. I was still in high school.)
- 3.5″ Floppy Disk (Macs in Cobol programming class in college)
- Magnetic Reel to Reel (used while working in computer lab in college)
- Hard Drive (largest size and smallest capacity in my collection is 10Mb – not Gigabyte)
- Bernoulli Drive (cartridge system, added 3/11/18)
- CD-ROM (even started creating a guild to CD-based software)
- Rewritable Magneto Optical Drive (HP Storageworks Optical, added 3/11/18)
- DVD-RW (much more storage, but still tedious for backups)
- Tape (used for backups, dozens for formats)
- Zip (cartridge for archives and backups by Iomega)
- NAS (Network Attached Storage) – (Buffalo, Synology, Iomega, etc. added 3/11/18)
- Flash Drive (or usb drive, started at around 1Mb and now I have some that are 256Gb)
- SSD Drives (replacing hard drives with solid state flash memory)
- Internet/Cloud (taking many forms)
I was going to write about other forms of media, but now realize this list is getting quite long. I’m so old! At least I never used paper tape (holes punched in tape to store data).
I think later I will talk about how each impacted our lives. I just have to think of a way to convey this without making myself fall asleep writing it (again, more naps – getting older!)