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From GHN

Emerson W. Pugh

Timeline

Synopsis

Development of the world’s first magnetic disk storage product began in the IBM Laboratory in San Jose, California, in 1952. The purpose of the project was to devise a means for storing large quantities of data in a manner that could be accessed rapidly, even in a non-sequential manner, for analysis by electronic equipment that became available after World War II. Thousands of IBM 604 electronic calculators were delivered for use with punched card equipment beginning in 1948. Even more important in the long run were electronic stored-program computers.

The first UNIVAC was accepted by the U. S. Census Bureau in 1951 and the first IBM 701 was shipped to a customer in 1953. Both of these computers used electronic vacuum-tube circuits to process data as commanded by instructions, which together with data were stored in high-speed memory. The most difficult engineering challenge had been to create memories with sufficient speed and reliability. The memory of UNIVAC used mercury delay-line technology and that of the IBM 701 used cathode-ray-tube technology. Within a few years, both of these memory technologies were replaced by ferrite-core memories, which were faster and more reliable.

Much larger quantities of information were stored in punched cards and on magnetic tape. The first UNIVAC used metallic magnetic tape. Delivered two years later, the IBM 701 computer introduced superior magnetic tape storage, using light weight plastic tape coated with magnetic oxide. Reading data and instructions from punched cards used relatively slow electromechanical equipment. Magnetic tape provided more rapid reading and writing, but only for sequential information transfers. Providing a superior means for storing and transferring large quantities of information to and from electronic stored-program computers was ultimately the major success of magnetic disk storage. As this article reveals, however, the problem that drove the initial development of magnetic disk storage came from the earlier era of data processing with punched card equipment.

The essay will describe early efforts to define the laboratory’s development objectives. It will discuss the impact on those efforts of the development of magnetic drum storage systems by Engineering Research Associates in 1950 and subsequently by the IBM laboratory in Endicott, New York. Also of interest was work begun at about the same time at the National Bureaus of Standards on a novel notched-disk memory. The essay will reveal how market pressures and technical realities in 1953 caused the manager of the IBM San Jose Laboratory to select development of magnetic disk storage as the laboratory’s primary objective.

Emphasis will be given to the development of the first practical disk storage unit, which was used on RAMAC and delivered to customers beginning in 1956. A few early improvements to the technology used on RAMAC will be mentioned. These are described as the beginnings of a long string of improvements that permitted magnetic disk storage technology to remain in balance with semiconductor integrated circuit technology for many decades – decades during which both technologies experienced exponential rates of cost-performance improvement.

Bibliography

References of Historical Significance

T. Noyes and W.E. Dickinson. 1952. “Engineering Design of a Magnetic-Disk Random-Access Memory”. Proceedings of the Western Joint Computer Conference

J. Rabinow. 1952. “The Notched-Disk Memory”. Electrical Engineering

References for Further Reading

C. J. Bashe, L. R. Johnson, J. H. Palmer, and E. W. Pugh. 1986. IBM’s Early Computers, Chapter 8. The MIT Press

Albert S. Hoagland. 2005. Early History & A 50 Year Perspective on Magnetic Disk Storage. Magnetic Disk Heritage Center

Louis D. Stevens. 1998. “Data Storage on Hard Magnetic Disks,” Chapter 18 in E. Daniel, C. Mee, and M. Clark, Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years, p. 270-99. IEEE Press

About the Author(s)

Emerson W. Pugh is the author or coauthor of four books on the history of IBM and the computer industry. He has a Ph.D. in physics from Carnegie Mellon University and worked for IBM for 36 years in many capacities, including research scientist, product development manager, and corporate executive. He served as president of the IEEE in 1989, chair of the IEEE History Committee in 1996 through 1998, and president of the IEEE Foundation in 2000 through 2004.