Around here, the real challenge isn’t to find something that qualifies as a relic, but to find something that doesn’t. Any guesses what this is?
Can’t blame it on Bob — I think this relic was mine — *blush*.
It’s 3340 DASD — a direct access storage device — from a long gone airline reservation system. When there was a DASD upgrade back in the late 70s/early 80s, people who worked in the Systems group thought it would be a lark to take some of the old equipment home. (What were we thinking?)
It’s a little unnerving to think that, capacity-wise, this disk would hold only a few of the images in my iPhoto library. I don’t remember how many disks it took to house the data base, but it wasn’t all that many. Just think: if you were on a TWA flight back then, your reservation may have been archived in my basement all this time.
Here it is from another angle, so you can see what a little Starship it is. Or rather, not so little by today’s standards. It’s over a foot wide.
“Hey Scotty, one to beam up…” (dunno what happened to that guy in the red shirt, he was here a minute ago)
But what to do with it? Who would want it? No one. The recycling center wouldn’t take it because it’s a mix of materials. Dang… it’s a dilemma. Any ideas?
I’m going to think about it while I go watch an episode of Star Trek Voyager on yet another outdated storage device: a DVD (at least I can send the DVD back to Netflix).
Related posts:
Hoarder Comes Clean 
A young collector of things computery would love it. My son has various collections from his early teens that are very precious to him still – all themed!
A collector — I had no idea. Now that I think of it, I unpacked an old-old monitor and took it to the recycling center a couple of years ago. There was a guy there who wanted to take it home. So now I just need to find the right person — thanks!
I have never heard of a DASD. Wow, that was so long ago, I’m showing my age. You’re right. It looks like a starship. But when I first looked at it, I was guessing it was a vacuum cleaner. How wrong I was 😀 Perhaps these things are worth a fortune now…
Long ago, and we thought we were really high-tech. We permed our hair too, so that just goes to show you. Thanks for commenting — Sandy
Oh, yes. Curly permed hair. That I remember. My mum always liked her hair permed in her younger days. As for me? I prefer to wear my hair just as it is 🙂
Ten years ago, I thought a floppy disk way high tech 😀
Ah yes, I find old floppies around here and drop them off for recycling at Best Buy stores. Luckily I never had any of the early 5-inch ones except at work. Hmm, I wonder if Best Buy would take my 3340 if I can’t find a collector who’ll be interested in “free to a good home”. I doubt there’s any good answer to bad hair though.
wow – I remember by first computer a hand-me-down from my dad – two 3.5 floppy drives in 1990… added a 20MB hard drive for $500….how far we’ve come.
20MB doesn’t sound like much today, does it? We used to be so thrifty with storage, I guess because we had to be. It will be interesting to see what the next decade brings.
Put it on Ebay. People will buy anything!
What a laugh that would be! But it’s pretty heavy, would be awfully expensive to ship. (I did look on eBay and didn’t see any equivalent sales) Hmm, maybe there’s a tech-y museum…