I got a big paper im doing about the history of storage and media. What is the beggest computer advancement in technology in the past 40 years in your opinion
Those are some difficult choices to be certain, as all of them present incredible merit in many regards.
DVD is mass-storage optical media.
RAM is high-speed temporary computing space.
HDDs are high-density mass storage.
SolidState drives are good in theory, and can be excellent for working with large files.
CDs were first in inexpensive optical storage, opening the doors for delivery of new music, files, and a whole slew of other outcomes.
But above all of them, in my opinion, hard drives and memory are the most important advancements in storage/volatile storage. The hard drive allowed inexpensive maintaining of files, and memory allows ultra-fast temporary computing space. The longevity of these standards are testament to the solidity of the design ideology.
Memory will continue to be a mainstay. By increasing density, clock speeds, and signal timings, there's no limit to how RAM can progress. RAM in and of itself has begun to branch into active-gas holographics.
HDDs increase in areal density, platter density, and progress very slowly into nano-cube high-density storage. Modular devices that have the potential to store 500GB in something the size of your thumbnail. It's just brilliant stuff.
Those two technologies were revolutionary, evolutionary, and are set to repeat the cycle.
ya i know its hard to choose, thats why i decided to let more than 1 option playing around i found that the first gigabyte hard drive was as big as a fridge and costed $700,000 lol
Computers have continued to grow in performance, technological advancements and so many other areas... but if volatile memory could not have been increased with processor speed and all the other advancing technologies... it would stunted the development.
RAM has not kept pace with the rest of the computer.
CPUs have advanced tremendously since, say, 66MHz RAM was available. Sure, we might have RAM that easily runs 4x that speed in clock and 8x that speed in theoretical bandwidth, but how much faster are the CPUs? CPUs are nearing 50x faster in terms of clock speed. Sure, I'm not considering how RAM went from 60ns to 4ns, but neither am I counting on-die cache or SSE/SSE2, etc.
Take hard drives, what was the largest capacity available when 66MHz RAM and 66MHz CPUs were introduced? 1GB? We now have hard drives that are 250-300x larger (some even larger than that) in capacity and I have no idea how much faster the hard drives are but they're many many times faster.
I voted for hard drives. To me the hard drive was the biggest advancement listed and continues to advance faster than anything on the list.
That's my $.02. Warranty not implied. Your mileage may vary.
Everything said about the enormous increase in HD space is true, but one can always buy more CD's to increase storage potential. Bought in bulk and with the always-available rebates, you can add storage for the equivalent of 15-cents a GB. Until I see crash-proof 200GB HD's selling for $30, I'll continue to rely on CD's for my storage needs.
I know that the CD's days are probably numbered, but nothing beats it (for the money) right now.
Why? No longer do users have to fiddle with 10's of floppy disks just to install a simple office program (anyone remember Office 4.2 for Windows 3.1 on FLOPPY DISK?). Ugh.... 35 disks. Anytime you had to install it, even a seasoned computer geek would cry at the sight of 35 disks.
With the advent of CD-ROM's, users could finally enjoy programs with realistic audio and video, no longer confined to the space of 1.44 MB's. Look at today's advanced operating systems and software applications. Without CD-ROM's as the transportation and distribution media, none of that would have been possible on the wide-spread scale and price-point that we enjoy today. Would you want to install MS Visual Studio 2003 off 1.44 MB floppies when the package is 7 CD's large now? I think not...
DVD is really the next logical step in CD-ROM's, offering increased read/write performance and storage space, so it's not as large an advancement as the change from floppy disks to CD-ROM's.
I say hard drive. Everything else on the list is derived from that. If we had tiny hard drives, the programs would need to be smaller and we would need less ram space. Also, we would not need huge backup capabilities (CD/DVD). Also, the complexity of programs would be less and thus require less processing. The bigger the non-volatile memory can get the more resources it can afford.
The biggest driver for storage size is the internet.
I thought about RAM too, but thought it came in a close second.
To be a compute,r almost all basic computers that are multi-functional use/used RAM. And it was RAM that really gave the Computer its ability to do more than one task...
It could be flushed and reloaded as required to perform other functions or tasks...
But the reason I chose the HD is because with out the HD we wouldn't have seen the everyday computer move into the home.
I remember the old Aple before Apple 2e and the old Tandy computers that had RAM and an old 5-1/2" drive that you loaded the OS from a boot floppy everytime you started the computer.
I remember that when we wanted to switch form one program to another we had to stick in that programs floppy where one of the functions before the next program could start was to flush the RAM and load up the instructions for the new program to run... If you didn't save to a floppy before you loaded up a new progy you were screwed, you lost all of your work for the day maybe.
The Hard Drive not only gave us storage but provided a consistant place to store the boot information.
The advances in Hard Drives have paved the way for the OS 's and applications to reside and run with out the need to ever reboot or reload manualy.
It gave multi-functionality to the computer which in turn made it marketable for home use. People could now see the practicle use for the computer in homes which were not limited to only the technical savy...
So while we may see more advances in Storage systems in the future, but the one that made the most impact in the last 40 years in my opinion, was the good old Hard Drive.
While the hard drive was a big advance, it didn't have a major overnight effect. I don't recall a huge advancement in capabilities when I moved from a computer with no hard drive to one that had one. Sure, we have gained a plethora of capabilities because the hard drive was there, but I think its a correlation, not a cause and effect.
RAM might be, but I've never heard of a computer that didn't have it.
CD Writable was my second choice. But, the major advance here was societal, not purely a computer phenomenon.
DVD Writable now gives users the ability to back up there whole hard drive for less than $20 in RWs and make "backup" copies of DVD Movies. I've even used my DVD writer to make a single disc that contains all the software I use from Windows to Office to Winamp to Trillian to Catalysts etc
Well, I voted for DVD, and regretted it when I actually read the thread
I say DVD for broad media. It leaps miles ahead of VHS for movies, but anyway..
The CD-Rom certainly had a large impact on the storage market. It could hold as much as about 350 floppy disks, and was already widely used in the music industry. CD-Roms bred CD-RWs, and in parallel, DVD bred DVD-RW. The ability to transfer a large amount of data without having access to an internet backbone was a major advancement, and for a cheap price.
Before that, Hard Drive. The leaps and bounds they've taken in capacity are astonishing, especially when you realize how easy (provided you are knowledgeable on setting up RAID arrays) it is to get a terabyte now. 10 years ago, I don't think people could've imagined 250gb, when they only had 3 or 4gb, at most. Unless you're in the movie production biz, you'll be hardpressed to fill a terabyte worth of entertainment. If you have that much pr0n, you should cuddle in a small corner for at least 10 minutes of quiet time.
RAM is definately a necessary part of a computer. Compared to a HDD, the bandwidth between RAM and the CPU is much, much higher, now measured in gigabytes. Standard IDE now transfers at around 100 to 133MB/s (correct if wrong. Not sure if bits or byte, but I'd bet on bytes). If the CPU had not a resource fast as today's RAM, a computers power is drastically reduced. Having that resource is invaluable to the CPU.
You can have all the hard drive space and memory you like, but without the CD-ROM I would STILL be reinstalling software from my reformat in August
The release of Myst and the simultaneous epidemic spread of the CD-ROM drive marked a watershed moment of bringing software usability to the masses (at least in my mind). Pop in the disc, it runs itself, and it had more storage space than many hard drives did at its inception.
I wish my vote could count toward CD-RWs too, being on essentially the same media. The day the home PCer could back up more than 1.44 MB at a time was AWESOME!
w00t for CDs!
0
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited December 2003
The biggest advance in computer storage...
hmm...
gotta be rackmountable cases. I mean, before, you used to have to have relatively huge cases for each computer, but with racks you can stack a bunch of them in about the same footprint as 3 towers...
But from a commercial/industrial point of view, I believe that tape storage should have gone in there as an option Armogeddon. Before the days of HDD's the storage media was magnetic tape, and there were literally millions of feet of tape in the world for many decades as the mainstay of computer storage.
Think backup - every mainframe in every big company would be backed up, say, every night onto miles of tape.
it was only after i had posted the list that i forgot about 3 or 4 more options. reel to reel, tape, super disks etc.
=(
but i cant alter it, thats why i had to put in the OTHER option to cover what i missed cuz there are alot of storage utilities
I wouldn't worry too much about missing the ones such as reel to reel too much considering the fact that they aren't in use any longer, I mean reel to reel might look cool but who really wants to store their data on media that's subject to the elements and stretch while in use?
I voted for DVD+-RW myself but I wish that DVD in general would finally get leveraged to a better extent, it would be really nice to be able to buy a game on one DVD instead of 3 or more CD's and have room for extra's that the developer could toss in as a bonus such as demos of up coming releases or other current releases along the same lines as the game you're playing such as getting a demo of Medal Of Honor with BF '42...wishful thinking, I know but it's a thought.
I think though that as far as optical storeage goes that the DVD recordables will eclipse the CD recordables in the near future due to ever lowering prices on both hardware and media as well as better set-top compatabilities. The sheer storage capabilities of DVD and the fact that it's now fairly afordable make it the biggest advance in quite a while, it will be very nice to be able to condense the close to 200 burned cd's I have down to 50 or so DVD's.
My vote is for EPROM. It's friggin everywhere. It stores the firmware in your hard drive, optical drives, motherboard, stores the software that drives the controllers in your monitor, keyboard, mouse, TV, PlayStation, UPS, surround decoders, and everywhere you have an embedded microcontroller. In short, it's in every piece of electronics you own that has a microcontroller.
Before you go on to say that most of those have OTP ROM's, consider that the only difference between an OTP ROM and an EPROM is that the average EPROM has a window. EPROM came first. Flash ROM is a form of EEPROM, an evolved form of EPROM.
Nice as hard drives, RAM, processors, etc. are, they'd be for naught without EPROM.
-drasnor
0
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited December 2003
So I guess no one found my joke about the racks funny then, huh?
Its okay. I'm surprised people actually said DVD. Its a natural evolution of the CD. Its kinda like saying SCSI is the driver for space since the ATA (or pre ATA) was much improved on.
I guess the opinions are a function of age. I rememebr those Apple IIc's. Man, that brings back memories.
Comments
DVD is mass-storage optical media.
RAM is high-speed temporary computing space.
HDDs are high-density mass storage.
SolidState drives are good in theory, and can be excellent for working with large files.
CDs were first in inexpensive optical storage, opening the doors for delivery of new music, files, and a whole slew of other outcomes.
But above all of them, in my opinion, hard drives and memory are the most important advancements in storage/volatile storage. The hard drive allowed inexpensive maintaining of files, and memory allows ultra-fast temporary computing space. The longevity of these standards are testament to the solidity of the design ideology.
Memory will continue to be a mainstay. By increasing density, clock speeds, and signal timings, there's no limit to how RAM can progress. RAM in and of itself has begun to branch into active-gas holographics.
HDDs increase in areal density, platter density, and progress very slowly into nano-cube high-density storage. Modular devices that have the potential to store 500GB in something the size of your thumbnail. It's just brilliant stuff.
Those two technologies were revolutionary, evolutionary, and are set to repeat the cycle.
Computers have continued to grow in performance, technological advancements and so many other areas... but if volatile memory could not have been increased with processor speed and all the other advancing technologies... it would stunted the development.
RAM has not kept pace with the rest of the computer.
CPUs have advanced tremendously since, say, 66MHz RAM was available. Sure, we might have RAM that easily runs 4x that speed in clock and 8x that speed in theoretical bandwidth, but how much faster are the CPUs? CPUs are nearing 50x faster in terms of clock speed. Sure, I'm not considering how RAM went from 60ns to 4ns, but neither am I counting on-die cache or SSE/SSE2, etc.
Take hard drives, what was the largest capacity available when 66MHz RAM and 66MHz CPUs were introduced? 1GB? We now have hard drives that are 250-300x larger (some even larger than that) in capacity and I have no idea how much faster the hard drives are but they're many many times faster.
I voted for hard drives. To me the hard drive was the biggest advancement listed and continues to advance faster than anything on the list.
That's my $.02. Warranty not implied. Your mileage may vary.
Everything said about the enormous increase in HD space is true, but one can always buy more CD's to increase storage potential. Bought in bulk and with the always-available rebates, you can add storage for the equivalent of 15-cents a GB. Until I see crash-proof 200GB HD's selling for $30, I'll continue to rely on CD's for my storage needs.
I know that the CD's days are probably numbered, but nothing beats it (for the money) right now.
Why? No longer do users have to fiddle with 10's of floppy disks just to install a simple office program (anyone remember Office 4.2 for Windows 3.1 on FLOPPY DISK?). Ugh.... 35 disks. Anytime you had to install it, even a seasoned computer geek would cry at the sight of 35 disks.
With the advent of CD-ROM's, users could finally enjoy programs with realistic audio and video, no longer confined to the space of 1.44 MB's. Look at today's advanced operating systems and software applications. Without CD-ROM's as the transportation and distribution media, none of that would have been possible on the wide-spread scale and price-point that we enjoy today. Would you want to install MS Visual Studio 2003 off 1.44 MB floppies when the package is 7 CD's large now? I think not...
DVD is really the next logical step in CD-ROM's, offering increased read/write performance and storage space, so it's not as large an advancement as the change from floppy disks to CD-ROM's.
The biggest driver for storage size is the internet.
I chose Hard Drive.
I thought about RAM too, but thought it came in a close second.
To be a compute,r almost all basic computers that are multi-functional use/used RAM. And it was RAM that really gave the Computer its ability to do more than one task...
It could be flushed and reloaded as required to perform other functions or tasks...
But the reason I chose the HD is because with out the HD we wouldn't have seen the everyday computer move into the home.
I remember the old Aple before Apple 2e and the old Tandy computers that had RAM and an old 5-1/2" drive that you loaded the OS from a boot floppy everytime you started the computer.
I remember that when we wanted to switch form one program to another we had to stick in that programs floppy where one of the functions before the next program could start was to flush the RAM and load up the instructions for the new program to run... If you didn't save to a floppy before you loaded up a new progy you were screwed, you lost all of your work for the day maybe.
The Hard Drive not only gave us storage but provided a consistant place to store the boot information.
The advances in Hard Drives have paved the way for the OS 's and applications to reside and run with out the need to ever reboot or reload manualy.
It gave multi-functionality to the computer which in turn made it marketable for home use. People could now see the practicle use for the computer in homes which were not limited to only the technical savy...
So while we may see more advances in Storage systems in the future, but the one that made the most impact in the last 40 years in my opinion, was the good old Hard Drive.
"g"
While the hard drive was a big advance, it didn't have a major overnight effect. I don't recall a huge advancement in capabilities when I moved from a computer with no hard drive to one that had one. Sure, we have gained a plethora of capabilities because the hard drive was there, but I think its a correlation, not a cause and effect.
RAM might be, but I've never heard of a computer that didn't have it.
CD Writable was my second choice. But, the major advance here was societal, not purely a computer phenomenon.
DVD Writable now gives users the ability to back up there whole hard drive for less than $20 in RWs and make "backup" copies of DVD Movies. I've even used my DVD writer to make a single disc that contains all the software I use from Windows to Office to Winamp to Trillian to Catalysts etc
Oh well...
I say DVD for broad media. It leaps miles ahead of VHS for movies, but anyway..
The CD-Rom certainly had a large impact on the storage market. It could hold as much as about 350 floppy disks, and was already widely used in the music industry. CD-Roms bred CD-RWs, and in parallel, DVD bred DVD-RW. The ability to transfer a large amount of data without having access to an internet backbone was a major advancement, and for a cheap price.
Before that, Hard Drive. The leaps and bounds they've taken in capacity are astonishing, especially when you realize how easy (provided you are knowledgeable on setting up RAID arrays) it is to get a terabyte now. 10 years ago, I don't think people could've imagined 250gb, when they only had 3 or 4gb, at most. Unless you're in the movie production biz, you'll be hardpressed to fill a terabyte worth of entertainment. If you have that much pr0n, you should cuddle in a small corner for at least 10 minutes of quiet time.
RAM is definately a necessary part of a computer. Compared to a HDD, the bandwidth between RAM and the CPU is much, much higher, now measured in gigabytes. Standard IDE now transfers at around 100 to 133MB/s (correct if wrong. Not sure if bits or byte, but I'd bet on bytes). If the CPU had not a resource fast as today's RAM, a computers power is drastically reduced. Having that resource is invaluable to the CPU.
You can have all the hard drive space and memory you like, but without the CD-ROM I would STILL be reinstalling software from my reformat in August
The release of Myst and the simultaneous epidemic spread of the CD-ROM drive marked a watershed moment of bringing software usability to the masses (at least in my mind). Pop in the disc, it runs itself, and it had more storage space than many hard drives did at its inception.
I wish my vote could count toward CD-RWs too, being on essentially the same media. The day the home PCer could back up more than 1.44 MB at a time was AWESOME!
w00t for CDs!
hmm...
gotta be rackmountable cases. I mean, before, you used to have to have relatively huge cases for each computer, but with racks you can stack a bunch of them in about the same footprint as 3 towers...
hey is it ok you use yalls responses?
But from a commercial/industrial point of view, I believe that tape storage should have gone in there as an option Armogeddon. Before the days of HDD's the storage media was magnetic tape, and there were literally millions of feet of tape in the world for many decades as the mainstay of computer storage.
Think backup - every mainframe in every big company would be backed up, say, every night onto miles of tape.
That was a big technological advancement IMO.
~Cyrix
=(
but i cant alter it, thats why i had to put in the OTHER option to cover what i missed cuz there are alot of storage utilities
I voted for DVD+-RW myself but I wish that DVD in general would finally get leveraged to a better extent, it would be really nice to be able to buy a game on one DVD instead of 3 or more CD's and have room for extra's that the developer could toss in as a bonus such as demos of up coming releases or other current releases along the same lines as the game you're playing such as getting a demo of Medal Of Honor with BF '42...wishful thinking, I know but it's a thought.
I think though that as far as optical storeage goes that the DVD recordables will eclipse the CD recordables in the near future due to ever lowering prices on both hardware and media as well as better set-top compatabilities. The sheer storage capabilities of DVD and the fact that it's now fairly afordable make it the biggest advance in quite a while, it will be very nice to be able to condense the close to 200 burned cd's I have down to 50 or so DVD's.
Before you go on to say that most of those have OTP ROM's, consider that the only difference between an OTP ROM and an EPROM is that the average EPROM has a window. EPROM came first. Flash ROM is a form of EEPROM, an evolved form of EPROM.
Nice as hard drives, RAM, processors, etc. are, they'd be for naught without EPROM.
-drasnor
I guess the opinions are a function of age. I rememebr those Apple IIc's. Man, that brings back memories.
Close second is Optical Media (CD/DVD)