[Year 12 IT Apps] Data retrieval technology - 1937 style

[Laurie Savage]

Retrieval time might be improved by the use of helium balloons tied to the
operator chairs or the judicious use of sandbags.

Laurie Savage

On 18 May 2015 at 13:43, ken price <kenjprice at gmail.com> wrote:

> I guess they would improve performance by finding lighter and more
> "aerodynamic" operators, just as with mechanical hard drives.
>
> At some point the latency and seek time would be limited by the g forces
> on the operators. Human blackouts from moving too fast would literally be a
> "head crash".
>
> If the individual operators are coordinated by a master operator, it
> actually is a RAID 0 system. Perhaps RAID meant Redundant Array of
> Inexpensive Desks?
>
> RAID 1 and above would require the copying of letters, which is probably
> something the *Státní bezpečnost *(State Secret Police) took on later in
> Czechoslovakia's history for other reasons.
>
>
> Given that it's for sorting and storing letters and other mail, this
> system reverses the old saying - "the mail is in the Czech".
>
> kp
>
> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 1:26 PM, Mark <mark at vceit.com> wrote:
>
>> That was a nifty piece of detective work, Roland!
>>
>> I'm now wondering whether the latency and seek times of the Prague system
>> would have been affected by how much the operators ate for breakfast...
>>
>> Cheers
>> Mark
>>
>>
>> On 17 May 2015 at 23:20, Roland Gesthuizen <rgesthuizen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Took a bit of digging but I found a source and back story for this
>>> photograph if anybody wants to use it.
>>>
>>> Bciusa.com,. 'Photoshot > Image View'. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 May 2015.
>>> http://www.bciusa.com/view_image.jsp?img_id=101869
>>>
>>> "The offices of the Central Social Institution of Prague, Czechoslovakia
>>> with the largest vertical letter file in the world. Consisting of cabinets
>>> arranged from floor to ceiling tiers covering over 4000 square feet
>>> containing over 3000 drawers 10 feet long. It has electric operated
>>> elevator desks which rise, fall and move left or right at the push of a
>>> button. to stop just before drawer desired. The drawers also open and close
>>> electronically. Thus work which formerly taxed 400 workers is now done by
>>> 20 with a minimum of effort. 26th April 1937 “
>>>
>>> I would agree with Mark that it does look rather like a hard disk drive.
>>> Just trying to think how they could configure it as a raid array … hhmmm
>>>
>>> —
>>>
>>> *Roland GESTHUIZEN*http://about.me/rgesthuizen
>>>
>>> On 4 May 2015, at 10:19 am, ken price <kenjprice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm intrigued as to how similar the moving chairs are to read-write
>>> heads on hard disks.
>>>
>>> It's almost as if hard drive technology miniaturised the whole system of
>>> " data read/write people in chairs with x/y axis movement". The access
>>> times would be subject to the mechanical limitations of moving those Czech
>>> guys around the shelving.
>>>
>>> I wonder if they had head crashes in that system?
>>>
>>> kp
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 10:13 AM, Laurie Savage <08327998 at pvgc.vic.edu.au
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> Databasement?
>>>>
>>>> LS
>>>>
>>>> Laurie Savage
>>>>
>>>> On 1 May 2015 at 13:44, Mark <mark at vceit.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Data retrieval in Prague, 1937
>>>>>
>>>>> http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/2287100/84565802.jpg
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Witty sig goes HERE <<
>>>>>
>>>>> Mark Kelly
>>>>> mark AT vceit DOT com
>>>>> http://vceit.com
>>>>>
>>>>> - Gainfully Unemployed
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________y
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> >> Witty sig goes HERE <<
>>
>> Mark Kelly
>> mark AT vceit DOT com
>> http://vceit.com
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> --
> Dr Ken Price MACS CP ACCE Professional Associate.
> President, TASITE http://www.tasite.tas.edu.au
>
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