RAMAC Restoration
- ️Thu Feb 13 2003
From Bruce Allen < Bruce @ bballen . com > via Dave Bennet via Robert Garner
I need to start off by stating I was a hardware Tech. I was not in on the Development, of the 350, nor in on the programming. There are however a number of clues. There were four 305's in the computer room, running a number of applications.
The ones I remember were
- Employee attendance,
- Parts inventory and
- Production parts manufacturing tracking.
I remember asking the programers if there was some kind of interlocking between the access units,
they said there was. From a hardware point of view there was never a complaint or problem
in this area so I wasn't involved.
At Boeing we had a large IBM 357 Data Collection system, which provided a most of the input to the 305 systems. There were about 2 dozen 026 Key Punches in the room which were the output devices for the 357's. As employees came through the gate to go to work they passed there badges through the 357 reader which produced cards in the computer room. The cards went into the 305 system then on to payroll. In the manufacturing area employes checked on jobs, this allowed managers to track parts production as well as cost. When a Boeing customer requested a part, usually because they had an aircraft grounded, if it was not in the Parts inventory a search was made in the manufacturing area. The part located there could be expedited to the customer.
Sorry I don't have a more have a better explanation, at the time I figured it was taken care of through program design.
Again I want to thank everyone, especially Dave, for looking after us on our visit it was a wonderful experience.
Bruce Allen
at the Louisville Medical Depot
from Larry Blanchard < woodbutcher9876 @ gmail . com >
Date: Sun, Feb 25, 2018
Interesting history note. I helped the CE assembly the prototype. Yep, I *am* that old :-).
Annual Report of the Surgeon General United States Army Fiscal Year 1958
Automatic Data Processing
An ADPS (automatic data processing system) test was conducted at the Louisville Medical Depot from 6 May to 30 September 1957. The equipment utilized was an IBM prototype model 305A (RAMAC). After a thorough evaluation of all phases of the test operation, approval was granted for installing a production model 305A. Installation has been completed, and the logistic functions of the Louisville Medical Depot pertaining to data processing are now performed by ADPS.The photo below shows one packaged a bit more neatly than our prototype :-).
Successor Not Followup from Al Hoagland - May 17, 2013 - via Brian Beg
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I just read the recent email from Bruce. He stated he had four RAMAC systems (that's the 305), each 305 RAMAC includes a 350 disk drive. He does talk about tracking information on these four computer systems; however, he doesn't suggest any of these computer systems had an additional access mechanism on any of the disk drives.
I will give you some background on IBM San Jose during the period when the RAMAC developed. In the Summer of 1975, Rey Johnson was given the responsibility of running the Advance Disk File project, to come up with the successor to the RAMAC. This happened before the RAMAC was even announced. This clearly indicated IBM did not plan any follow up to the RAMAC (which was primarily created to address punch card equipment devices). The ADF program was set up to move IBM ahead of competition in the new electronics computer age, rather than being focused on punch card system improvements, which the RAMAC was essentially designed for. The program Rey started included a flying head per recording surface, a comb actuator for track selection, with the objective of increasing capacity by a factor of 10 and access time 10 times faster than the RAMAC. A strong motivation was to get IBM in a the leadership position with the new electronic computer technology being developed. A couple of other companies had been looking at flying heads on drums, where very short access times could be provided, although the capacity was very small compared to the RAMAC. Rey chose to pursue perpendicular recording, rather than the universally used, longitudinal recording (I have written a paper previously on this matter). In January of 1960, a major audit was made of the program, where the committee agreed that the steel disks used for storage (with oxidized surfaces) were of inadequate quality to be used. The consequence was to drop vertical recording, use the RAMAC-type disk head technology, which had been advanced continuously, since it was still involved in the double density RAMAC. This lead to the successful designs for the flying head, and the disk drive identified as the 1301, was announced in June, 1961. Since then, all disk drives have been characterized by a flying head, per recording disk surface. I will make an observation, that if Rey Johnson were to see a modern disk drive, 50 years after the 1301, (all which are now based on perpendicular recording) he undoubtedly would have thought that this is what he wanted with the ADF. This provides some background as to why I felt IBM had no interest in pursuing advances in the RAMAC. Thus, Rey Johnson played a role in both the rotating disk stack and the head per surface access capabilities that still define basic disk drives. I am impressed by what Bruce and his team have accomplished by organizing a way to manage four individual RAMACs to work collectively together. - Al Hoagland |
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The late 1950s brought two great revolutions to the world of computing:
- transistors became cheap enough and robust enough for computers - magnetic disk storage began to replace magnetic drums then mag tape
With the later transistor integrated circuits, both above caused computing to be millions of times:
The following discusses the reduction in size of a bit of information on a disk relative to the great granddaddy RAMAC:
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- reduction of the size of a bit "Areal Density" in particular - the seventh section
- Serious engineering on creating dense tracks - like 7,000 to the inch -
Friends, I occasionally lurk at various IEEE presentations, imagining that I can understand and be competitive,
even though retired.
Included in the usual IEEE events is the local
Magnetics Society.
Here is the abstract of the
current (Tuesday, Oct. 14th, 2014) presentation. I can't even fake
understanding most of the technical words - and likely will not go :-((
I also think that Al Hoagland and other RAMAC
magnetics guys would have trouble also. - Likely most of the concepts and techie names/words were not present
when they were active 60 years ago.
What was the original magnetic medium?
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There have been various theories about the magnetic media used to coat the RAMAC disks.
The following hand written memo from Jon Haanstra on June 3, 1953 be the most authoritive :-))
e-mail from Robert Garner to Tom Gardner, June 17, 2017
Tom Gardner did the interview Oral History of William "Bill: Crooks which has a magnetic paint story on page nine. Tom Gardner also contributed to Golden Gate Bridge Paint Myth. Gamma (magnetic) phase iron oxide is discussed in this Wikipedia article. History of magnetic materials including the needle-like iron oxide powders invented by Camras in the 1950s from "Physics and Engineering Applications of Magnetism" by Ishikawa & Mirua and Tom Gardner spotted The Little Maghemite Story: A Classic Functional Material and Joe Feng adds
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350 Model Numbers - By Tom Gardner
... but another detail that u might want to consider has to do with the many models of the 350 (and of the 355).
We think of the RAMAC as one drive but the 350 had eight models as follows:
Estimated purchase prices based upon actual rental prices of double capacity devices The 355 probably went thru a similar model evolution; it did start with multiple actuators. |
Disk drives on IBM 7030 (Stretch) - 353 versus 7303? - involving Tom Gardner - June 2021
The Query from Tom Gardner - June 1, 2021 - { t dot gardner @ computer dot org }
I (Ed Thelen) forwarded the request to more than 10 people who I thought might have info or who might be interested - David Bennet (June 02, 2021) responded with
Tom Gardner { t dot gardner @ computer dot org } - responded (June 02, 2021)
Tom Gardner { t dot gardner @ computer dot org } - added (June 03, 2021)
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Website started June 8, 2006
Updated through June 03, 2021
If you have corrections or suggestions, please send e-mail
to Ed Thelen (ed@ed-thelen.org) -