History of Digital Storage

In my Apple IIe days, I remember bringing in several examples of floppy disks to show my students including a big 8 inch floppy (shown in the picture) that a parent had given me . At some point in the mid eighties another teacher in my building wrote a grant to buy a hard drive to store the files for a bbs (electronic bulletin board) he was running. It was a whopping 128 mgs and cost over a grand. When I talk to my students about this now, it is one of those quaint bits of history. Interesting but quickly forgotten. It must have been like this for my mother when she used to tell me about switching from kerosene lamps to electric lights. It was interesting but I didn't really feel it in my heart. None of my students understand that heart thumping excitement as all the geeky teachers in the building (all three of us) gathered around that heavy, big 128mgs of monster technology and felt like we were looking into the future.

Maybe it's because I'm older and less prone to giddy flights of excitement, but I don't ever get that same big rush from the next new thing anymore. Maybe I'm jaded? Maybe I've seen too much change? It's fascinating to me.....after all I still am a geeky guy. Perhaps when I am laying on my deathbed and all the data from my life is playing back before me from a memory chip the size of a pin head, I can brag to the angels dancing with me there about how much change I've seen. (That might make me giddy?)

Thanks David Warlick's for the link that took me down memory lane. (Sorry for that pun...but it was just too good to pass up!) This site would be great to show to your kids when you talk about the old days. Be prepared though, they might laugh and call you things like "geezer".

[Image captured from http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=274]