Digital data storage: 60 years of progress
Throughout the history of mankind, there was probably no such rapidly developing branch of knowledge as information technology. Over the past 60 years (I think the active development of IT can be counted just from the appearance of the first computers, despite earlier inventions) which has not been tested, starting with computers on the ternary logic, and ending with processors sharpened for specific programming languages. The data storage industry has also developed steadily with the entire industry, and it was in this area that several interesting inventions were made that I would like to talk about.
Many years ago, when I read Heinlein's “Door to Summer” (one of the best works in science fiction) I was very surprised by the “Fresen's lamps” described there, as described by the author:
“They were used in intercontinental rockets and traffic control systems, such as in Los Angeles. There is no need to explain their device: probably, even in the Bell Corporation laboratories, not everyone understands this. Briefly, the essence of their actions comes down to the fact that you can mount a lamp into one or another mechanism, “show” some action to it, and the lamp “remembers” it and later will be able to manage this operation without human intervention. ”
')
Doesn't it remind modern semiconductor solutions? But the most surprising thing is that these “Frazen lamps” had already forgotten prototypes from real life: selectrons, which were named after Reichman in honor of the inventor.
The selectrons were not as universal and small as their reflection in a science fiction novel: the size of the selectron, which had a capacity of 4096 bytes, was about 25 centimeters in height and 8 centimeters in diameter. Another negative factor was the unrealistically high complexity in manufacturing and the price of the resulting products. For example, a 256 bit simplified selectron costs $ 500, which by the standards of the 40s was a huge amount. Because of this, selectrons and similar Williams tubes were replaced in the early 50s by cheap memory elements on magnetic cores.
In parallel with the beginning of the development of computers, there was a need for a simple and inexpensive solution for external memory. They have been known for many years, the decision in the form of punched cards. I will not delve into the history and tell about Jacquard looms, in which punched cards were first used, but it’s absolutely impossible not to mention our wonderful compatriot Semen Nikolaevich Korsakov. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, he invented and constructed a number of mechanical devices that worked on the basis of punched cards and were intended for the classification and processing of information. Thus, it can be considered one of the founders of the Russian (and not only) cybernetics.
Returning closer to the subject of the computer, it is worth noting that the 80-byte punch cards of 187 x 83 mm size, which were seen by almost everyone, developed in 1921, were not the only standard. For example, in the early 70s, IBM introduced a 96-column punch card, which allowed storing 64 bytes. For some reason, they are clearly associated with MiniSD cards for me :)
In 1928, Powers / Remington offered their standard punched cards, also known as "90-column punched cards". They used 2 rows of holes and a more complex encoding compared to the solution from IBM.
An interesting idea was the so-called "aperture cards" - punch cards with a built-in piece of photographic film on which some drawing was usually kept. Information on the map was the metadata of this drawing, allowing for faster processing in archives (and this is long before the invention of EXIF).
For mobile use, IBM released an interesting Port-A-Punch device, which was a mobile (pocket-sized) punch that allowed entering information onto punch cards on the go. Such an analogue of electronic notebooks, the dream of any geek of the early 60s.
In the 65th year, the Movement for Freedom of Speech chose punch cards as a symbol of the “system” with which they fought, since in their opinion punch cards that were used in people’s accounting systems turned people into a homogeneous mass that was easy to manage and manipulate. How can you not draw a parallel with the current situation with RFID tags and fierce fighters with them?
Punch cards naturally evolved into punched tape, which was easier to store and easier to process.
While punched cards and tapes were external memory, magnetic drums were widely used as internal memory. They are similar to modern hard drives, with the difference that the information was not stored on the surface of the plate, but on a cylindrical, constantly rotating drum. To work with it, a whole series of read / write heads were used, each of which was located on its own track. The controller simply waited for the necessary data to be under the appropriate head and then performed the necessary read / write operations. In general, the main speed characteristic of hard drives of those times was the speed of rotation of the magnetic drum. It was then that various techniques of recording optimization appeared, with gaps calculated so that the next portion of data would appear under the heads at the very moment when the program was ready to process them. This interleaving technology (or interleaving) is still sometimes used in different storage devices. Another echo of those times is the name of the swap section in some BSD systems / dev / drum
Soon, the magnetic drums evolved into familiar hard drives, the first of which was the IBM Model 350 Disk File, developed in 1956, containing 50 24-inch wafers that could hold about 5 megabytes of data. I think everyone saw a photo in which he was unloaded from the plane with the help of a forklift. The first disc that crossed the 1 GB line was the IBM 3380, released in 1980. With a capacity of up to 2.5 GB, it also hit the price - from 81 to 142 thousand dollars.
In the early 70s (more precisely in 1972) MCA and Philips presented the first laser disc, from interesting facts it is worth mentioning that it was 30 cm in diameter, the recording on it was analog and as a result - lazerdisks lost the VHS war to the cassettes (so that in triumph return as digital CD media).
By the way, do not forget about the magnetic tapes, which were first used as external memory of UNIVAC computers. The speed of reading heavy (they were made of metal) tape 365 meters long was about 7200 characters per second. Later tapes made of polymeric materials appeared, which made the reels noticeably lighter.
In 1952, the idea of ​​an infinitely looped magnetic tape placed in a special case was patented, and already in 1962 the production of the first cassette tape recorders began. In 1963, Philips released familiar cassettes to the market, naming them Compact Cassette. Since Philips abandoned licensing fees for this format (fearing a return move from Sony), tapes of this format became very popular and squeezed virtually all competitors out of the market. I will not delve into the use of conventional cassettes in the role of data storage - I think many remember the Spectrum. There were also various specialized solutions, and streamers (the so-called tape drives for storing computer data) are still used.
Modern streamers work with cassettes with a capacity of more than 1 terabyte (LTO-5), and connect using Serial Attached SCSI technology (I also think about it later). Not so long ago, IBM Research and Fujifilm introduced cartridges with a capacity of up to 35 terabytes, so it is still too early to write off this technology. In the world of large corporations and their data centers (data centers), you can often find tape libraries (the cheaper option is called Tape Loader, or tape loader). In such devices, the robot arm pulls from the cassette shelves and loads them into tape drives, which can also be several.
Speaking about the history of data storage, it is impossible not to mention the technology, which is still 100% associated with data storage. This technology is called RAID and was introduced in 1987, thus celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2012. According to one of the creators of technology Garth Gibson (the founder of Panasas), RAID was invented initially not to obtain fault tolerance, but to increase performance. The computer of the university, where the creators of the technology worked, was idle most of the time, since the means of entering information then, as now, was much slower than the calculator.
The history of IT is full of not only forgotten facts, but also of little-known companies, both those who left the stage, and quite successful ones and do a lot in their industry. If we talk about data storage, as an example, it is worth mentioning LSI. This company was founded by Wilfred Corrigan under the name LSI Logic in 1981 in California. A few years later, LSI was able to develop the first ITIC product line in the IT industry. This abbreviation stands for application-specific integrated circuit - an integrated circuit for a specific application, in other words an integrated circuit to solve a specific problem. One of the obvious examples of ASICs are just RAID controllers. Modern ASICs often contain a full-fledged 32-bit processor and memory blocks (both ROM and RAM), often referred to as a system on a chip (System-on-a-Chip).
LSI is currently one of the leading manufacturers of semiconductors and software for accelerating data storage and networking in data centers.
In the future, I will continue to talk about the unknown sides of data storage and about many other things.
Many years ago, when I read Heinlein's “Door to Summer” (one of the best works in science fiction) I was very surprised by the “Fresen's lamps” described there, as described by the author:
“They were used in intercontinental rockets and traffic control systems, such as in Los Angeles. There is no need to explain their device: probably, even in the Bell Corporation laboratories, not everyone understands this. Briefly, the essence of their actions comes down to the fact that you can mount a lamp into one or another mechanism, “show” some action to it, and the lamp “remembers” it and later will be able to manage this operation without human intervention. ”
')
Doesn't it remind modern semiconductor solutions? But the most surprising thing is that these “Frazen lamps” had already forgotten prototypes from real life: selectrons, which were named after Reichman in honor of the inventor.
The selectrons were not as universal and small as their reflection in a science fiction novel: the size of the selectron, which had a capacity of 4096 bytes, was about 25 centimeters in height and 8 centimeters in diameter. Another negative factor was the unrealistically high complexity in manufacturing and the price of the resulting products. For example, a 256 bit simplified selectron costs $ 500, which by the standards of the 40s was a huge amount. Because of this, selectrons and similar Williams tubes were replaced in the early 50s by cheap memory elements on magnetic cores.
In parallel with the beginning of the development of computers, there was a need for a simple and inexpensive solution for external memory. They have been known for many years, the decision in the form of punched cards. I will not delve into the history and tell about Jacquard looms, in which punched cards were first used, but it’s absolutely impossible not to mention our wonderful compatriot Semen Nikolaevich Korsakov. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, he invented and constructed a number of mechanical devices that worked on the basis of punched cards and were intended for the classification and processing of information. Thus, it can be considered one of the founders of the Russian (and not only) cybernetics.
Returning closer to the subject of the computer, it is worth noting that the 80-byte punch cards of 187 x 83 mm size, which were seen by almost everyone, developed in 1921, were not the only standard. For example, in the early 70s, IBM introduced a 96-column punch card, which allowed storing 64 bytes. For some reason, they are clearly associated with MiniSD cards for me :)
In 1928, Powers / Remington offered their standard punched cards, also known as "90-column punched cards". They used 2 rows of holes and a more complex encoding compared to the solution from IBM.
An interesting idea was the so-called "aperture cards" - punch cards with a built-in piece of photographic film on which some drawing was usually kept. Information on the map was the metadata of this drawing, allowing for faster processing in archives (and this is long before the invention of EXIF).
For mobile use, IBM released an interesting Port-A-Punch device, which was a mobile (pocket-sized) punch that allowed entering information onto punch cards on the go. Such an analogue of electronic notebooks, the dream of any geek of the early 60s.
In the 65th year, the Movement for Freedom of Speech chose punch cards as a symbol of the “system” with which they fought, since in their opinion punch cards that were used in people’s accounting systems turned people into a homogeneous mass that was easy to manage and manipulate. How can you not draw a parallel with the current situation with RFID tags and fierce fighters with them?
Punch cards naturally evolved into punched tape, which was easier to store and easier to process.
While punched cards and tapes were external memory, magnetic drums were widely used as internal memory. They are similar to modern hard drives, with the difference that the information was not stored on the surface of the plate, but on a cylindrical, constantly rotating drum. To work with it, a whole series of read / write heads were used, each of which was located on its own track. The controller simply waited for the necessary data to be under the appropriate head and then performed the necessary read / write operations. In general, the main speed characteristic of hard drives of those times was the speed of rotation of the magnetic drum. It was then that various techniques of recording optimization appeared, with gaps calculated so that the next portion of data would appear under the heads at the very moment when the program was ready to process them. This interleaving technology (or interleaving) is still sometimes used in different storage devices. Another echo of those times is the name of the swap section in some BSD systems / dev / drum
Soon, the magnetic drums evolved into familiar hard drives, the first of which was the IBM Model 350 Disk File, developed in 1956, containing 50 24-inch wafers that could hold about 5 megabytes of data. I think everyone saw a photo in which he was unloaded from the plane with the help of a forklift. The first disc that crossed the 1 GB line was the IBM 3380, released in 1980. With a capacity of up to 2.5 GB, it also hit the price - from 81 to 142 thousand dollars.
In the early 70s (more precisely in 1972) MCA and Philips presented the first laser disc, from interesting facts it is worth mentioning that it was 30 cm in diameter, the recording on it was analog and as a result - lazerdisks lost the VHS war to the cassettes (so that in triumph return as digital CD media).
By the way, do not forget about the magnetic tapes, which were first used as external memory of UNIVAC computers. The speed of reading heavy (they were made of metal) tape 365 meters long was about 7200 characters per second. Later tapes made of polymeric materials appeared, which made the reels noticeably lighter.
In 1952, the idea of ​​an infinitely looped magnetic tape placed in a special case was patented, and already in 1962 the production of the first cassette tape recorders began. In 1963, Philips released familiar cassettes to the market, naming them Compact Cassette. Since Philips abandoned licensing fees for this format (fearing a return move from Sony), tapes of this format became very popular and squeezed virtually all competitors out of the market. I will not delve into the use of conventional cassettes in the role of data storage - I think many remember the Spectrum. There were also various specialized solutions, and streamers (the so-called tape drives for storing computer data) are still used.
Modern streamers work with cassettes with a capacity of more than 1 terabyte (LTO-5), and connect using Serial Attached SCSI technology (I also think about it later). Not so long ago, IBM Research and Fujifilm introduced cartridges with a capacity of up to 35 terabytes, so it is still too early to write off this technology. In the world of large corporations and their data centers (data centers), you can often find tape libraries (the cheaper option is called Tape Loader, or tape loader). In such devices, the robot arm pulls from the cassette shelves and loads them into tape drives, which can also be several.
Speaking about the history of data storage, it is impossible not to mention the technology, which is still 100% associated with data storage. This technology is called RAID and was introduced in 1987, thus celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2012. According to one of the creators of technology Garth Gibson (the founder of Panasas), RAID was invented initially not to obtain fault tolerance, but to increase performance. The computer of the university, where the creators of the technology worked, was idle most of the time, since the means of entering information then, as now, was much slower than the calculator.
The history of IT is full of not only forgotten facts, but also of little-known companies, both those who left the stage, and quite successful ones and do a lot in their industry. If we talk about data storage, as an example, it is worth mentioning LSI. This company was founded by Wilfred Corrigan under the name LSI Logic in 1981 in California. A few years later, LSI was able to develop the first ITIC product line in the IT industry. This abbreviation stands for application-specific integrated circuit - an integrated circuit for a specific application, in other words an integrated circuit to solve a specific problem. One of the obvious examples of ASICs are just RAID controllers. Modern ASICs often contain a full-fledged 32-bit processor and memory blocks (both ROM and RAM), often referred to as a system on a chip (System-on-a-Chip).
LSI is currently one of the leading manufacturers of semiconductors and software for accelerating data storage and networking in data centers.
In the future, I will continue to talk about the unknown sides of data storage and about many other things.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/169151/
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