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To: QT3.14
I was there in the 1980's when this expensive IBM 3380 hard drive system was installed - here one is without the box. I now carry much more storage on a flash drive than this thing had. As I recall, it had two 500 meg hard drives, side-by-side.




6 posted on 05/30/2015 11:42:23 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Be a blessing to a stranger today for some have entertained angels unaware)
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To: SaveFerris; QT3.14

That first box is a 3880 controller for the 4 3380’s behind it,, each 3380 could have 2 spindles 3380 a or b models were the smallest and are the 500mb size ,, I only had 3380 d/e and K drives , the “K” was the big dog at 2.1GB d’s and e’s were 1gb... the “K” drives had spindle bearing issues...at one time I had 3TB of these monsters shared with 7 mainframes , a 370/168 , 2 3031AP’s and 4 3081’s ... now you can buy 3TB for $99 at CompUSA.

The Apollo/Saturn V computers were pie shaped and arranged in a ring of 7 identical computers ... the memory was the ancient wire grid with donut shaped magnets at the intersections... NASA would fly a mission with 3 computers down as long as 3 of the 4 remaining agreed on results... needless to say that memory style combined with MILLIONS of explosive horsepower wasn’t optimal.


27 posted on 05/30/2015 1:36:50 PM PDT by Neidermeyer ("Our courts should not be collection agencies for crooks." — John Waihee, Governor of Hawaii, 1986-)
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