[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Peer Inside the Robot Brain
May 19th, 2008 by Benj Edwards
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In this week’s Retro Scan, we’re looking way back to 1953. Many computers in the 1950s used monster magnetic drum storage units, like the one you see above, as working memory — ala RAM — until the faster and more adept core memory came along. Using technology similar to a cylindrical hard disk, these beasts were understandably slow compared to their non-mechanical successors.
If anybody out there ever worked with one of these, we’d definitely love to hear from you.
Discussion topic of the week: How much RAM did your first computer have?
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May 19th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Like a large number of others here, the Commodore 64 was my first. The other large (larger?) group is probably the Apple II group with the TI-99/4A group running in third…..that’s just my assessment based on memory of previous posts.
My first “PC” had either 640K or 1MB (don’t remember now).
Layne
May 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
My first was a Vic-20, with the massive amount of memory of 2.5 Kilobytes!
May 19th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
16k
May 19th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer. It was found in a dumpster, so it had somewhere between 4 and 64 kilobytes of memory… ah, memories…
May 19th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
my first?
hmm… can’t remember the details. but its an Apple II clones. but the next one is easy. a 640KB IBM PC XT. Now i’m running at 3 GB ram. that’s an increase by more than 4000 times. i wonder what happens if everything advance as fast as computer, we all might be posting to VC&G from the edge of the galaxy!
May 20th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
My first computer was an Atari 800 with 16K of memory. The first computer I ever WORKED on was a Commodore PET with, I think, 4k of memory.
Now I’m running a Mac with 2gigs of memory 🙂
May 25th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I owned a COSMAC Elf (homebuilt) with an 1802 processor and 256 bytes of RAM. I ordered the parts from Jameco.
Yes, that’s bytes with no Kilo, Mega, or Giga in front. I quickly outgrew that little machine, and got an Apple ][+ for a graduation present.
Now that I can get a PC with 4G of RAM, for half the price of that Apple ][+, and I don’t FEEL that it has made me any more productive. Code has expanded to fill available space.
November 29th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81, it had 1Ko of RAM.
One of my first app was intended to draw a rectangle : a line that would follow the screen’s borders. The app stopped before completing its goal with the error message : “out of memory” 😉