[Hidden-tech] More packrat stuff... files off an ms-dos system?

[Jan Werner]

Before the IBM PC, most microcomputer software was distributed on 8 inch 
128KB floppies, which was a vast improvement over paper tape. The 
floppies on the first IBM PCs held no more than 360KB.

A full-sized (2400 foot) reel of 9-track tape for the IBM/360 mainframe 
held a maximum of about 44MB using the largest possible block size, and 
even the high-density 6250bpi tapes introduced in the 1970's held no 
more than about 170MB of data.

In the mid 1980's I set up some data collection systems on AT clones 
using full height 5" 72MB hard drives. These cost about $7,500 at the 
time and came with dedicated controller cards and a patched version of 
MS-DOS to allow accessing more than 32MB.

Jan Werner
_____________

Rikk Desgres wrote:
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> 
> This discussion is fascinating. Considering we are in the age of Blu-Ray,
> Solid State Media and 1 TB hard drives. I'd be hard pressed to find anything
> on my computer that would actually FIT on a 720K floppy these days.
> 
> Rikk