Think Your Computer Is Slow? Check Out This Floppy Disk Relic
If you know what floppy disks, DOS, monochrome monitors and dot matrix printers are, then you were most likely around in the late 1970s and early 1980s when personal home computers were introduced. My thoughts of old computers got started when I was cleaning out my garage a couple of weeks ago and found some 5.25″ computer floppy disks. That got me wondering, how old are these things anyway?Watching the video of a vintage 1981 IBM 5150 computer reminds us how slow booting up a computer was and how little they could do. I remember the first computer I used with a 10 megabyte hard drive, an IBM XT. By today’s standards, a hard drive that small might be able to hold a few photos or songs.
Since there wasn’t any internet or other home networking, sharing information between computers was done by copying it to one or more of those floppy disks and then copying it off the floppy onto the other computer.