Lot 4634

Description

Computer storage disk, (61cm) double sided magnetic oxide coated disk of the type first used in Australia on IBM computers in c1956, impressed number 224 9 on one side and 225 2 on the other side of aluminium inside edge of centre hole, also scratched into aluminium, '0621A'. Very fine and scarce item of computer history.

This disk is one of the original disks from the first random access computer in Australia, the IBM 305 RAMAC at General Motors Holden in Dandenong, Victoria in the 1950s. The RAMAC stood higher than a man and about an armspan wider. It had a number of these double sided disks, constantly rotating, and an equivalent number of double headed arms that moved in and out to read each head face. With research.