We've come a long way
May. 19th, 2006 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magid$Coworker told me disks had arrived for me.
Disks? I don't have any way to access disks!
Which made me start thinking about junior year in college, when I got my first computer, an Apple II (c or e, I don't remember), with 5.25" floppies*. I was pleased to have a computer of my own, which meant I wasn't tied to computer lab or dependent on the mercies of computer-owning friends (*vivid memories of most of a night waiting for a friend's computer*). I could print out my papers on my dot-matrix printer, then tear off the holes on the sides and separate the sheets; no more typewriter for me. On the down side, my papers stayed in my computer, since whatever word processor I had wasn't the same as at the computer lab, nor was it compatible. Since I wasn't a CS major, I didn't have email, so the only way to get my papers from one place to another in electronic format was to carry the diskette to another computer. It felt amazingly cutting edge, even so.
By the end of college, the Mac lab had those new-fangled 3.5" diskettes, which were no longer floppy, less prone to physical damage (though not immune). And the lab had the first mouse I'd seen. I remember looking on as my friend who monitored the lab used this clunky thing, and I thought it would never catch on.
With grad school came my first email address (the first thing I signed up for once I was registered) email lists. I started my first job afterward without a computer, then with a computer that was only linked to the internal servers. Any time I wanted to do external research, I asked one of the few Internet-connected people if I could use zir's computer during lunch. Files came in email, or via the mysterious FTP site (someone in another department had to take files from the site and put them on the server for us), or disks, which soon came to be replaced with CD-ROMs. My computer could read both, until I was upgraded to a G-3, and I could only access CD-ROMs. Every once in a while a floppy would come in, and I'd have to find someone who could still use floppies. Either way, diskettes or CD-ROMs, it was still the same thing I'd been doing in college, essentially.
My work computer has no slots for external media; everything comes in email, off a server, or via FTP. I remember thinking a few years ago how odd it would be if I couldn't access files that way, and now it's normal. (I admit to an ancient home computer that still has slots, but I don't remember the last time I used them.)
I wonder what's next for file transferral.
* Senior year I got to see the 8" or 10" floppies (I don't remember which) that an ancient Wang computer used, and they looked so old**.
** But more obviously related to the now than the stacks of computer cards my mom punched for her computer classes. I loved going with her to the lab, because I could play with a punch card machine, making pretty patterns on the cards. Total bliss.
And on a wholly different topic, I caught the end of last night's gubernatorial debate on the radio last night. One of the candidates sounds incredibly MA-ian, with all his "ideers". Virtual venison, anyone?
Disks? I don't have any way to access disks!
Which made me start thinking about junior year in college, when I got my first computer, an Apple II (c or e, I don't remember), with 5.25" floppies*. I was pleased to have a computer of my own, which meant I wasn't tied to computer lab or dependent on the mercies of computer-owning friends (*vivid memories of most of a night waiting for a friend's computer*). I could print out my papers on my dot-matrix printer, then tear off the holes on the sides and separate the sheets; no more typewriter for me. On the down side, my papers stayed in my computer, since whatever word processor I had wasn't the same as at the computer lab, nor was it compatible. Since I wasn't a CS major, I didn't have email, so the only way to get my papers from one place to another in electronic format was to carry the diskette to another computer. It felt amazingly cutting edge, even so.
By the end of college, the Mac lab had those new-fangled 3.5" diskettes, which were no longer floppy, less prone to physical damage (though not immune). And the lab had the first mouse I'd seen. I remember looking on as my friend who monitored the lab used this clunky thing, and I thought it would never catch on.
With grad school came my first email address (the first thing I signed up for once I was registered) email lists. I started my first job afterward without a computer, then with a computer that was only linked to the internal servers. Any time I wanted to do external research, I asked one of the few Internet-connected people if I could use zir's computer during lunch. Files came in email, or via the mysterious FTP site (someone in another department had to take files from the site and put them on the server for us), or disks, which soon came to be replaced with CD-ROMs. My computer could read both, until I was upgraded to a G-3, and I could only access CD-ROMs. Every once in a while a floppy would come in, and I'd have to find someone who could still use floppies. Either way, diskettes or CD-ROMs, it was still the same thing I'd been doing in college, essentially.
My work computer has no slots for external media; everything comes in email, off a server, or via FTP. I remember thinking a few years ago how odd it would be if I couldn't access files that way, and now it's normal. (I admit to an ancient home computer that still has slots, but I don't remember the last time I used them.)
I wonder what's next for file transferral.
* Senior year I got to see the 8" or 10" floppies (I don't remember which) that an ancient Wang computer used, and they looked so old**.
** But more obviously related to the now than the stacks of computer cards my mom punched for her computer classes. I loved going with her to the lab, because I could play with a punch card machine, making pretty patterns on the cards. Total bliss.
And on a wholly different topic, I caught the end of last night's gubernatorial debate on the radio last night. One of the candidates sounds incredibly MA-ian, with all his "ideers". Virtual venison, anyone?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 06:35 pm (UTC)Doesn't your computer have a USB port? You could transfer files on a flash drive.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 06:41 pm (UTC)Hm. So files get put on a flash drive, which can be uploaded (or would it be downloaded?) to a particular computer... which makes it rather like a disk-less disk drive, moving files manually about.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 08:58 pm (UTC)I haven't had to buy one yet. (Professional hazard, I suppose.)
Crucial has 128MB flash drives for $14 now, or for $29 you can get a 512MB.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 07:29 pm (UTC)part of me is a bit nostalgic for the days of "SneakerNet" (what most of my blanks were called back in the day) but then I remember how much it sucked.
I used to carry a SneakerNet disk with me everywhere with whatever bits of data I usually needed and so I could get stuff from the physics lab back to my dorm computer... except for some reason these disks were failing at an alarming rate. It took me a while to realize that leaving them in my jacket pocket and leaving my jacket in the room with the dentist style X-ray machine probably wasn't the best thing for the media.
The sad part... Brandies had a fully functional net work when I was there, sure it was appletalk (installed in 87 if I recall) but it worked. Eventually I came to use that for everything.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 07:34 pm (UTC)I was just a bit too early (/not a cosci major) at B'deis to be able to use any network.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 09:02 pm (UTC)We had to move a group from the Harvard Med campus to Kendall Square. They had a few terabytes of data to move, and we ran some numbers which indicated that it'd probably saturate their network connection for several days. (Not likely to make them popular with the other folks there, I suspect.)
They couldn't just bring the server it was on, because it was shared with another group.
Since we had to buy new storage anyway, we had it shipped to Longwood, copied the files onto it, and hauled it to Kendall. Multiple terabyte sneakernet.