1 Feb
2013
1 Feb
'13
8:14 a.m.
On Fri, Feb 01, 2013 at 12:03:32PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
The 6th Edition update to the CACM paper says:
Our PDP-11 has a 1M byte fixed-head disk, used for file system
storage and swapping, four moving-head disk drives which each
provide 2.5M bytes on removable disk cartridges, and a single
moving-head disk drive which uses removable 40M byte disk packs.
The 7th Edition update says:
Our own PDP-11 has two 200-Mb moving-head disks for file system
storage and swapping.
And Dennis' paper on the Evolution of Unix says:
During the last half of 1971, we supported three typists from
the Patent department, who spent the day busily typing, editing,
and formatting patent applications, and meanwhile tried to carry
on our own work. Unix has a reputation for supplying interesting
services on modest hardware, and this period may mark a high
point in the benefit/equipment ratio; on a machine with no memory
protection and a single .5 MB disk, every test of a new program
required care and boldness, because it could easily crash the
system, and every few hours’ work by the typists meant pushing
out more information onto DECtape, because of the very small disk.
Any guesses as to the hardware?
0.5MB: RF11-A/RS11
1.0MB: RS04/EJS04
2.5MB: RK05/RK11-D
40MB: RP03/RP11-C
200MB: My peripherals handbooks only go up to 1975.
Cheers,
Warren