IBM 1360 және «Жаңалмақ» жүйесі: Алғашқы терабойттық сақтағыш

The IBM 1360 Photo Digital Storage System, or PDSS, was an online archival storage system for large data centers. It was the first storage device designed from the start to hold a terabit of data (128 GB). The 1360 stored data on index card sized pieces of stiff photographic film that were individually retrieved and read, and could be updated by copying data, with changes, to a new card. Only six PDSSs were constructed, including the prototype, and IBM abandoned the film card system and moved on to other storage systems soon after. Only one similar commercial system seems to have been developed, the Foto Mem FM 390, from the late 1960s.

In the mid 1950s IBM's San Jose lab was contracted by the CIA to provide a system to retrieve vast numbers of printed documents. The lab was interested in using a new type of photographic film known as Kalvar. Kalvar was developed to make copies of existing microfilm stock, simply by placing the Kalvar and original together, exposing them to ultraviolet light, and then heating the Kalvar to develop it. This could be carried out in a continuous roll to roll process. IBM's proposal, code named "Walnut", was a mechanical system that would automate the process of copying materials in the store using the Kalvar film. To further develop the system, in January 1958 IBM hired Jack Kuehler to head up a team exploring Kalvar based films. He quickly concluded that Kalvar was not stable enough to store data with the sort of reliability IBM demanded, breaking down over a period of a few years and giving off corrosive gas while it did so. Kalvar is based on a diazo film and Kuehler was able to identify a similar film that would provide the reliability required, although at the price of needing to be developed in a wet lab process. He proposed a new version of Walnut that replaced the Kalvar developer with an automated diazo film developer system that developed the film in a few minutes. He was able to convince the CIA to accept this change, and the new version was announced in 1961 and delivered the next year. The primary element in a Walnut system was a large cylindrical carousel called the document store. Each store contained 200 small boxes IBM referred to as cells, in keeping with earlier magnetic tape based systems. Each cell contained 50 strips of film, each of these containing 99 photographs arranged in a 3 by 33 grid. In total, each document store contained images of 990,000 documents, and up to 100 document stores could be used in a single Walnut system, for a total storage of 99,000,000 pages. A separate system was used to access pages from the Walnut system. Users would look up keywords stored on an IBM 1405 hard disk system, identifying individual documents to be retrieved. The machine produced punched cards that were inserted into the Walnut. The Walnut system retrieved the documents, copied them onto a film strip and developed it, and then inserted four such images into an aperture card. The card could be read directly on a microfilm reader, or used as negatives for full sized printouts.

When Walnut was successfully delivered in 1961, the San Jose lab turned its attention to commercializing the system under the project name "Cypress". A direct analog of Walnut for document storage became the 1350 Photo Image Retrieval System, while the same basic system adapted to storing computer data became the 1360 Photo Digital Storage System. Both systems used the same photographic cards and automated film development system originally developed for Walnut, but replaced the diazo film with longer lasting conventional silver halide films. The system used pneumatics to move the film cards between the more complex developer system, the reader/copier, and a much larger store. Jack Harker was the Program Manager for the development and delivery of the systems. At about the same time, the Atomic Energy Commission started looking for a system able to store 1 terabit for online access by supercomputers running simulations. IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center proposed a new version of the 10 inch optical disk they had developed for the AN/GSQ 16 (Mark II) Russian to English machine translation system. San Jose instead proposed a Cypress system for the same role. Cypress won the contest, and a $2.1 million (2100000.0 in 1961 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years) contract was awarded for two machines, one for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the other for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The former was delivered in September 1967 and the latter in March 1968. Three more systems were eventually delivered, two for the National Security Agency and another for Los Alamos National Laboratory. These would be the only Cypress systems delivered. By the time they were in place, IBM had developed a number of other storage systems of similar size, and started suggesting the IBM 3850 in favor of the 1360. Magnetic tape, such as the tape in the 3850, required stricter attention to humidity and temperature than the optical film of the Photostore. Its few users generally preferred the 1360, and three of the five were still being used in 1977, and the last system shut down only in 1980 when IBM stopped servicing them. The IBM 1350 never sold a single unit. In 1966 the company started a "controlled marketing program", but after a year they realized that the system would need additional development before it would be commercially acceptable. Instead they decided to cancel its development.