Historical Computer Engineering - Circuits/arithmetic units
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Circuits/arithmetic units

tape recorder

IBM 2310 Removable Cartridge Drive

The exhibit you see, named IBM 2310 Removable Cartridge Drive is one of the first hard disk drives in the world. It was normally used for so called „small systems“. Furthermore it was also the first hard drive that inherents an appropriate price-performance ration. This hard drive was a revolutionary product. In the late 50s the capacity of 1 MB was enormously huge! The disks spun at 1200 RPM. Data transfer rate was 8,800 characters per second.

If somebody wanted to use the disk, he had to pay 3.200$ per month for only 350 MB, believe it or not. Six of these disks could be mounted into a vertically rack, called „IBM 1316 DiskPack“. Each disk has two layers, but the top surface of the top disk and the bottom surface of the bottom disk cannot be used for recording data, which leaves 10 recording surfaces. It was advertised as an „small and portable“ system. This sounds funny today, but in 1956 it was true!

IBM 2310 removable cartridge drive
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