I had one of these. My mother worked for a company that was replacing their Model II system and since we had known them for years, they "sold" it to us for a great price. In the lot was the giant wide daisy wheel printer. That printer would shuttle the print head back and forth so fast I had to put it on the floor. it was shaking my entire desk when I printed anything. Unfortunately, my dad destroyed it all. Why? Our family friends from the company that gave the system to us told us to "destroy" any company stuff on the system. And not knowing much about computers, my dad literally destroyed the computer and printer. There went my first attempt at learning how to code. ARGH! It took a few more years before I was able to get any sort of computer again. The next one was a Model 1 laptop. And from that computer I learned BASIC and I have never had a desktop since. Great video. Brings back memories. Memories that were truncated, but good memories.
I have two of these 8 meg hard drives, a Master and one slave. One needs the power supply rebuilt. But I'm missing the controller card that plugs into the Model II. Maybe some day I'll get lucky and find one. Nice video! Good to see these old things in action.
$5000 was a lot of money for a hard disk that size even in 1981. The ST-412 cost less than half that. I guess they couldn't get any drives from Seagate? One of the strangest things about that drive is the fluid damper on the back of the stepper. That is the first time I have ever seen anything like that on a hard disk drive. BTW the interface that drive uses, known as SASI, was the direct predecessor to SCSI.
Since computers of the day couldn't do photo-quality graphics, video, and digital sound, the only thing you'd want a hard drive for was probably a huge mailing list or client database. I imagine that law firms and medical offices would keep track of their clients/patients with a Model II. Who else would want to spend thousands of dollars on a computer to keep track of clients? In this day and age, you need a hard drive because each application has so much data with it, and you need tree-structured directories to keep the applications separate from each other.
I had one of these. My mother worked for a company that was replacing their Model II system and since we had known them for years, they "sold" it to us for a great price. In the lot was the giant wide daisy wheel printer. That printer would shuttle the print head back and forth so fast I had to put it on the floor. it was shaking my entire desk when I printed anything.
Unfortunately, my dad destroyed it all. Why? Our family friends from the company that gave the system to us told us to "destroy" any company stuff on the system. And not knowing much about computers, my dad literally destroyed the computer and printer. There went my first attempt at learning how to code. ARGH!
It took a few more years before I was able to get any sort of computer again. The next one was a Model 1 laptop. And from that computer I learned BASIC and I have never had a desktop since.
Great video. Brings back memories. Memories that were truncated, but good memories.
I have two of these 8 meg hard drives, a Master and one slave. One needs the power supply rebuilt. But I'm missing the controller card that plugs into the Model II. Maybe some day I'll get lucky and find one. Nice video! Good to see these old things in action.
That computer has seen better days. Looks like it's not just used but been thoroughly used to end of life. Amazing it still works.
Paranoid Factoid that's my test rig. She's seen better days but she's doing her part to keep her brethren alive.
Awesome Video! Thanks for posting it.
You opened it up! Well there goes your warranty.
$5000 was a lot of money for a hard disk that size even in 1981. The ST-412 cost less than half that. I guess they couldn't get any drives from Seagate?
One of the strangest things about that drive is the fluid damper on the back of the stepper. That is the first time I have ever seen anything like that on a hard disk drive. BTW the interface that drive uses, known as SASI, was the direct predecessor to SCSI.
Such memories of selling these…. 3:51
Since computers of the day couldn't do photo-quality graphics, video, and digital sound, the only thing you'd want a hard drive for was probably a huge mailing list or client database. I imagine that law firms and medical offices would keep track of their clients/patients with a Model II. Who else would want to spend thousands of dollars on a computer to keep track of clients? In this day and age, you need a hard drive because each application has so much data with it, and you need tree-structured directories to keep the applications separate from each other.
It is impressively not fast!