[cctalk] Re: IBM 360

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Apr 12, 2024, at 5:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 11 Apr 2024 at 19:32, Van Snyder via cctalk
> <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> An IBM salesman convinced them to try out a 360/30 with a Data Cell.
> 
> No idea what a "data cell" is.
> 
> I found this:
> 
> https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/data-cell
> 
> At the Eastercon last week, I met a chap who learned to code on an IBM
> 1620. He told me of a terrible, terrible storage device which used a
> robot to load strips of magtape. Cheap but a horrendous failure rate.
> Is it this thing?

Yes.  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2321_Data_Cell .  By the 
standards of the time it was an unusually high capacity storage device, way 
faster than a room full of tapes and much larger than the 2311 disk drive.

        paul