Memory -- Computer History Museum, part 2 of 2

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photo by Donald Kinney

As one might expect, the first exhibit at Computer History Museum is about recorded memory. Every thing from ancient incised clay tablets to the modern miniature flash memory that I use in my camera.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Building short and long-term memory with more capacity and speed, yet physically smaller, has always been the challenge. Transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and resonant coils have shrunk in size, while power requirements have diminished as well.



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photo by Donald Kinney

A book of functions for calculating, perhaps, the variables of a curve. Or the change in velocity of an object. Or maybe calculations on the rising and setting of the sun. Working it all out by hand was a very arduous task.



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photo by Donald Kinney

The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order.
(((source:  Wikipedia)))



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

And now, back home from Computer History Museum... That's the spinning memory I use for backup. It sits on top of my 4-3/4 year old MacPro. They're MercuryElite 1-TB external hard-drives in a mirrored RAID configuration.

The calendar is by one of my favorite photographers--Marty Knapp of Point Reyes Station. And yes, I probably should get his new calendar because I seem to be stuck on October of last year. (I've shown the calendar out of focus to avoid copyright issues)


CLICK for a silly Flash website I designed in 2004.

CLICK for the very "best" of my work on my photo website.