Ghosts of computers past

One of this month's books is The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss. It's an amusing read, though a little dated now. Reading on the bus this morning, I was brought up short by a mention of 10Gb being the largest commercially available hard drive. That sounds about right for the 1995 publication date. I think it was 1998 when my work computer acquired three 9Gb external disk packs, and 2001 when we abandoned them as no longer worth bothering with. The new work computer has a terabyte of RAID storage built in, and I've seen consumer 1Tb drives advertized.

What worries me, though, is that progress seems to have stalled a bit lately, at least on the processor front.

( Trends )

The other thing that started me wandering down memory lane was the news that IBM is getting out of the PC business.
( Geeky nostalgia )

These days, IBM PC mostly means 'ThinkPad'; black, beautiful laptops with those funny little eraserhead pointing devices. I gave my first international PowerPoint presentation on a borrowed one, and used a crossover cable in a hotel lobby in Tenerife to transfer a file from one to another so one colleague could surprise another with a birthday greeting. I could never justify buying one for myself, but I've had it at the back of my mind that one day I might qualify for one. Now I never will, or if the brand carries on, it won't have that IBM badge.

Wordcount meme

From pollyc
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