Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I managed to find a DEC dual (5-1/4") floppy that worked with the disk controller cartridge!

I don't think I ever had the Color Computer (Coco) on-line.
But I did expand it to 64K. Can't remember if it came with 16 or 32K of RAM.
I really got into the working guts of the Coco. 6809E assembly language also.
Those were the days!
My XT clone (later) was the first to go on-line.

Now 4K won't even work for cache.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I'll turn the old saw around: "It's REALLY broken, don't fix it!"

rwww80a Loc: Hampton, NH

They were called drum drives and worked via a arm moving end to end on a magnetic media cylinder "drum" similar to the way early wax drum recording phonographs records.

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

TRS-80, Otherwise known as the TRASH-80, eh ? At that time I was working with a 640K (IBM) Machine, LoL

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Took me that long to get there. Life got in the way.
I was weened on an IBM OS-360 (64K of core memory) in 1972 using FORTRAN.
(Actually worked par-time in the satellite campus computer room for the university for a couple of semesters - student & equipment support.)

Yup, the Trash-80.
But our user's group called it the Coco.
I was a Geek LONG before the term was coined!

Angel Star Photography Loc: Tacoma, WA

Indeed they keep packing more and more into these devices and you have certainly surfaced some good memories. Your card is just a 32GB SD card. Check this one out, a 1TB microSD:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1466566-REG/sandisk_sdsqxa1_1t00_an6ma_extreme_microsd_1tb_card.html

I am always fascinated with the microelectronics. My first memory board that I worked on used bi-mag cores in a vacuum tube system using 6197 tubes. It was a piece of Crypto hardware, now declassified, known as the KW-26:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KW-26

http://jproc.ca/crypto/kw26.html

These were toroidal, ferite cores with wire windings that were pulsed to set the 1 or 0 state, and then continuously pulsed at a lower voltage as a refresh. Reading the core was done in much the same way. The cores, about 3/8 inches in diameter, were sealed, individually, in small black resin squares about three quarter inches square. They would hold one bit of information.

Since then, I have grown with the technology through transistors, circuit packs (transistor cicuits with specific functions sealed in a resin module), to microcircuits and chips. Even the circuit boards these days are very complex with multiple layers of traces compared to the wired circuit boards, then single-sided and double-sided trace circuit boards.

As for PCs, I had my share of repairing and programming systems such as the IMSAI 8080 (S-100 bus system---did bit level machine programming using the dip switches), TRS-80, Apple (using the Motorola 6502 processor), and more while studying for my BSEE.

Charles

hrblaine

[quote=JohnR] I started with computers in the 80s with Commodore 64 and Sinclair TR80(?) when 4Mb of memory was a huge amount - why would you need more

IIRC, I started with an IBM mainframe LOOOONG time ago (in the '60s). That's all I can remember. Dunno when I got my first personal computer but iirc, it was a Mac, I think maybe a Lisa. Harry

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I don't think the memory core toroids were 3/8" in diameter, they are MUCH, much smaller!
Maybe the first were that large, but not the latest.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

Ordered my TRS 80 with 384K memory. The sales clerk asked me what in the world will I do with all that memory.
It even came with two floppy disk drives. This was a big step up from my Commodores (Vic & 64).

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

I remember when they would sell us 1 & 2 megabyte memory cards. Now they make 1 and 2 terabyte memory cards.

And I thought those small cards were the biggest you could get for $30 and $60 respectively. Now they make 1 and 2 terabyte cards for $240 and $480 respectively. And they are microSD cards too.

IMHO, I would not buy a memory card with that much memory. Imagine if you lose it, all your work is gone. The most I use is 32 megabyte CF Card and SD cards. Yes I have a boat load’s worth buying I have them nicely and neatly organized.

gouldopfl

Just like CPU's die. The smaller they are the more diodes are on each and the less power needed. The new AMD processors have more than 4 billion transistors

Angel Star Photography Loc: Tacoma, WA

Perhaps so, but in the KW-26 they were about that size.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I never saw a KW-26, but I did see some "newer?" ones. Little buggers were SO small, and I wondered how they threaded the wires through them, with the wire being about as thin as a hair.