When I was growing up our first hard drive was only 10mb and I believe it cost several thousand. I’m pretty stocked up on ram and HDDs but I am sure the AI bubble will burst soon if it has not already. Image and video generation is nice everything else is a scam and even if it were not where’s the market?
5 MB and yes, that price of several grand is accurate. Two ribbon cables and a Molex power connection. You had to “park” your drive before powering down. Many didn’t know, but it was possible to squeeze out more capacity by changing the encoding from MFM to RLL, assuming the drive controller supported RLL. After I did it, another two years for the owner’s son to stop screaming “you can’t do that!” But it worked. I don’t know why the manufacturer installed an RLL controller and drive but forced it to use MFM.
I expect the AI bubble to burst. Up north at the old Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, the powers in charge are suddenly having second thoughts about bringing it back online. They don’t want to invest money into a plant that needs work just to make it operational again if there is no market for the power.
Somebody please explain why we need animated fantasy purple haired women with 18 fingers on 2 right hands connected backward and 2 left feet. I don’t get it. What is it with these young people? Not all of them. Just a certain segment of the populace. Perhaps it is time to bring back the circus side shows?
My first (in 1985) real computer was a 286 (with the 287 math chip) running at 8mHz.
And we splurged and got 2 (count 'em) Seagate 20MB drives. Never going to fill those up…
One of the best decisions I made in hindsight. That beast lasted me through college and gradschool before I sold it.
That’s why we have Congress…
Alexandria Occasionally Coherent: 
As a retired truck driver, I believe I am more qualified than AOC to speak about geography and foreign policy. Venezuela is clearly north of the Equator.
I am waiting for her to explain how President Trump is failing because he still doesn’t have a freeway built from California to Hawaii. Or a high speed train. I just know she is going to say something like that.
I don’t care what anyone else says. I want AOC to run in 2028 if the DNC doesn’t try to run Kamala again. I am in favor of them going with word salad, zero reality, pro-crime, and incoherent thoughts.
That was a hot setup back then. While at work I was dealing with a 4 Kb buffer for the paper tape drive. Which was adequate because a reel of tape was only 2 Kb.
At home I had a Color Computer 2, 64 Kb, hooked up to a Sanyo television. Just to mess around with after work. I even took it to work one day and after the shift ended, I connected the bit-banger serial port to the RS-232 port on a machining center that had one. That little computer could easily do the job of the much slower paper tape drive. Then the owner’s son found out and started screaming about how it can’t be done. Mind altering illegal drugs will do that.
It provided better results than trying to date women who did nothing but put me down for lacking a university degree and working in a tool and die shop. Never mind I probably earned more than their last and next boyfriends. Never tell a potential girlfriend how much you earn. At least not until after she has made up her mind to dispose of you because you don’t check the correct boxes.
Consider yourselves lucky. In Canada, we’d vote AOC into the Prime Minister’s office, and probably hand a big portfolio to Maxine Waters as well.
The sad fact is that even AOC is to the right of our so-called “conservative” party.
And for that, you have my sympathies
Too bad the Red Green Show isn’t going. That show could use AOC. They could have her trying to figure out how to use duct tape to tape ducks. Every show, a new way to try taping ducks. They could even have Maxine Waters appear in Adventures With Bill, and swap out Bill for Chuck Schumer, considering how he is an expert at putting cheese on raw burgers.
Our only saving grace here in Canada is the greed and corruption of our leadership. They’d rather use our tax dollars to line their pockets and give their cronies sinecures than spend it on jack-booted thugs to hunt us down like dogs. The only people who want to use the money to actually come after Canadians are what we here in the frozen north call “conservatives.”
This is a nice allegory of Canada:
When I heard that, the first thing I thought of was Monty Python banning saying “mattress” in a store that sells beds. Leave it to them to prove that there is some sort of logic backing up insanity.
The second thing was Monty Python’s Killer Joke, where people would die from being exposed to the joke. One word would cause insanity.
Killer yellow? I could see Graham Chapman delivering this line with a straight face.
Guess I have to buy Seagate Barracudas for the time being.
Guess I have to buy Seagate Barracudas for the time being.
Fwiw, I switch back to Seagate after the whole WD CMR/SMR flap a few years ago. And the Barracudas were seriously kickin’ butt.
Then Seagate dropped the price on the EXOS line and I haven’t looked back.
Of course today you can’t buy refurbs for what I paid…