Hard Drive Coffee Table
Don't get us wrong - we like computers, but we love our coffee computer tables even more. This coffee table is made from an original 26-inch hard drive platter from a 1967 Control Data Corporation 6603 Disk File Controller. The center hub of the platter and the custom-made pedestal are both made from solid aluminum, and the entire platter is covered with a 1/4-inch piece of table glass to protect its surface and of course it's data.
For the tech-heads out there, looking at the original manual (PDF) this drive could store 37,355,520 12-bit words which works out to be about 53 MB of total storage. (37,355,520 * 12 /8 = 56,033,280 bytes /1024 /1024 = 53.4 MB) Given this drive was made in 1967 I was expecting it to be far smaller than that so I’m quite impressed. Of course the entire drive would have probably consisted of at least 6 platters like this one so you can only imagine how big it was when completely assembled.
Via OhGizmo! at Grand Idea
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Posted by Jay Brewer at May 5, 2006 7:48 AM
Can't be a 6603--it used the Bryant 4000 drive which had 39" platters (spun at about 900 RPM).
I think it's more likely a CDC 808 drive.