In 1973 I went on a field trip from business college class to the IBM plant in Morgan Hill CA to see the Winchester HardDrive. My memory is that it was 20 mb. Wiki said it was planned for two 30 mb spindles thus the name Winchester. And eventually produced as either 35 or 70 mb.
They were as big as a wash machine, and I still hold we were told 20 mb.
That's where they keep our Social Security records safe.
The first PC I got my hands on was an IBM AT with all of 10 mb hard drive.
I called the front office to ask "Who is going to put this together" their response - "You!
In those days, a 20 MB hard drive weighted about 20 pounds, too.
LOL
In 1980, at my first job, some guys had the 20mb version hooked up to an 8085-based machine, with a touch screen. Touch, as in a wire grid in soft plastic. Must have been 1980 or 81. Kiosk type stuff.
The IBM Cottle Rd facility was about 15 north of Morgan Hill is within the San Jose city limits. My first job after grad school was on that campus and I knew a few people who worked on the original Winchester drive and they still had a number of disks from that period decorating offices. It was named for the Winchester 30-30 round because it had 30MB fixed and 30MB removable storage.
In 1970 I was stationed at Kadena AFB working for AFSA. Between flights I worked essentially inside a computer. The Computer in question was in a room that was probably more than half an acre in size and had rows and rows of stacks of perhaps 20 hard drives that seemed to be about 14 inches in diameter and an inch thick. I have been given to understand that all that capacity did not equal what some modern smartphones or tablets have. It was all tube tech and had to be kept at some COLD temperature so we all wore jackets and watch caps and some wore gloves with the fingers cut off so we could type on the teletype keyboards.
In 1970 I was stationed at Kadena AFB working for AFSA. Between flights I worked essentially inside a computer. The Computer in question was in a room that was probably more than half an acre in size and had rows and rows of stacks of perhaps 20 hard drives that seemed to be about 14 inches in diameter and an inch thick. I have been given to understand that all that capacity did not equal what some modern smartphones or tablets have. It was all tube tech and had to be kept at some COLD temperature so we all wore jackets and watch caps and some wore gloves with the fingers cut off so we could type on the teletype keyboards.
One of my first jobs was as a software laboratory computer operator. I worked with those Winchester Harddrives extensively. (The actual computers were about the size of two walk-in closets end to end.)