COLLECTION 12 / STORAGE & MEMORY
From magnetic tracks to flash cells. Pick up the objects, look inside, and find out what happens when disk 16 refuses to cooperate.
Quake, Nine Inch Nails & the story behind this lab ↗STATION 01 / 05
A little collection of objects that once carried our programs, music and whole evenings of anticipation. Select an object on the shelf.
1980s–2000s
1,474,560 B · 1,440 KiB
80 cylinders × 2 sides × 18 sectors × 512 bytes. The famous “1.44 MB” label combines conventions: it is neither 1.44 decimal MB nor 1.44 MiB.
Boot disks, drivers, schoolwork and multipart transfers. A standard FAT12 format reserves some sectors, leaving less room for ordinary files.
Source ↗Representative formats and periods of use. Internal SSDs and early data carriers are distinguished from removable disks; capacities are not universal specifications.
1890s–1970s · 80 columns
Holes encode characters in columns. A reader senses their pattern. Cards can be sorted physically, but order matters; one card is not a disk with a filesystem.
Early data processing and program input. The 80-column card is one influential format, not every punched card.
Source1900s–1970s · Format-dependent
Rows of holes carry codes; a feed hole keeps the reader synchronized. Reading is sequential. A tear interrupts the stream; length determines capacity.
Teleprinters, numeric control and early program storage. No single byte capacity applies.
Source1950s–today · Reel & format dependent
A coated ribbon passes a magnetic head. Data is arranged along the tape, so reaching a distant block may involve winding rather than an immediate seek.
Batch processing and backups; still important for archives. Large capacity does not mean disk-like random access.
Source1970s–1980s · Duration & encoding
Computer bits become a recorded signal on compact-cassette tape. The machine decodes the signal during playback. Start position and signal quality matter.
Affordable home-computer storage. Slow and sequential; capacity varies with baud rate and encoding, not just cassette minutes.
Source1971–1980s · ≈80 KB · early IBM example
A flexible magnetic disk rotates in a large protective sleeve. The head moves between concentric tracks. IBM shipped an early read-only system in 1971.
Initially used for loading system information; later writable formats differ greatly. The earliest capacity is not a generic 8-inch specification.
Sourcelate 1970s–1990s · 360 KiB DD / 1,200 KiB HD
A magnetic disk in a flexible square sleeve, with a head opening and central spindle hole. Representative PC formats use two sides; DD and HD need suitable drives.
Programs, documents and game distribution. Easily carried; exposed surfaces and incompatible formats can spoil a transfer.
Source1980s–1990s · 737,280 B · 720 KiB
A rigid shell and sliding shutter protect a flexible magnetic disk. The representative PC DD geometry is 80 cylinders × 2 sides × 9 sectors × 512 bytes.
Portable documents and software. Mechanically similar to HD, but density and drive compatibility differ. FAT metadata reduces file space.
Sourcelate 1980s–2000s · 1,474,560 B · 1,440 KiB
80 cylinders × 2 sides × 18 sectors × 512 bytes. The famous “1.44 MB” label combines conventions: it is neither 1.44 decimal MB nor 1.44 MiB.
Boot disks, drivers, schoolwork and multipart transfers. A standard FAT12 format reserves some sectors, leaving less room for ordinary files.
Sourcemid-1990s–2000s · 100,000,000 B nominal
A thicker removable magnetic cartridge, with denser tracks and a dedicated ZIP drive. It is not an ordinary floppy and cannot be used in a standard floppy drive.
Backups and large documents before USB became common. ZIP-250/750 were later relatives; compatibility is model-dependent. Nominal capacity is not free formatted space.
Source1980s–today · 74 min Mode 1 · 681,984,000 B
An optical pickup follows a spiral. Pressed CD-ROMs use pits and lands; CD-R changes a dye layer and CD-RW uses a reversible phase-change material.
Music and software distribution. Mode 1 has 2,048 user bytes per sector; audio sectors carry a different payload. 80-minute Mode 1: 737,280,000 B.
Sourcelate 1990s–today · ≈4,700,000,000 B · single layer
An optical disc with smaller features than a CD. The comparison uses a single-layer nominal capacity; recordable variants and filesystems have their own layouts.
Films, games and backups. Multiple layers are possible; this model does not silently substitute a dual-layer disc.
Source2000s–today · 25,000,000,000 B nominal · single layer
A blue-violet laser and tighter optical geometry permit greater density. A 25 GB disc is the representative single-layer comparison, not every Blu-ray format.
HD video, console games and archives. Media variants and drive support matter; nominal bytes do not specify available filesystem space.
Source2000s–today · 128,000,000,000 B · selected example
NAND cells retain electrical charge without power. A controller presents logical blocks and manages physical storage. No spindle or optical pickup is involved.
Portable files and bootable ISO collections with Ventoy. Capacity, speed and endurance vary. Ventoy and filesystem structures occupy part of the nominal capacity.
Source2000s–today · Capacity varies
NAND packages and a controller replace moving disks. Logical blocks can be remapped. NVMe is a command protocol usually carried over PCIe, not a kind of memory cell.
Usually internal system and game storage. Wear leveling distributes writes; garbage collection and error correction are controller tasks. No unlimited write endurance.
SourceSTATION 02 / 05
Step through a mechanism. These are conceptual drawings, with enlarged parts and only a few representative tracks or blocks.
1 / 3
A magnetic head reads tracks and sectors. Flash uses a controller and nonvolatile cells. Optical discs are read with light.
Simplified model; animations do not show literal bit motion. System motion preferences take precedence.
Technical source ↗STATION 03 / 05
A modern game becomes a whole logistics problem. Published Windows storage-space requirements, checked 16 October 2026; installations and updates vary.
80,000,000,000 B
count = ceil(target_bytes / medium_bytes)
MB = 1,000,000 bytes; GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. MiB = 1,048,576 bytes; GiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes. Integer arithmetic rounds a partly filled last medium up. Zero bytes require zero media.
The floppy uses 1,474,560 bytes before filesystem metadata. ZIP uses a declared 100,000,000-byte nominal unit. The CDs use 2,048-byte Mode 1 user sectors, not raw CD-Audio bytes. DVD uses approximately 4.7 billion bytes; Blu-ray uses nominal 25 billion. USB uses 128 billion total nominal bytes. Filesystem overhead, archive headers and Ventoy partitions reduce real free space.
These are mathematical equivalents, not playable floppy editions, real download sizes or guarantees that one file can be dragged onto each medium. Custom fractions are rounded up to the next byte; inputs above 1 EB are rejected.
STATION 04 / 05
A plausible educational reenactment, not Dennis’s original archive utility or a diagnosis of his real disks. You control the sequence and recovery.
I remember reaching part 16 of a disk-spanning transfer and getting an error. My neighbour had already gone home. I had to wait until he returned with another stack. I no longer know the exact filenames, utility or fault.
Each numbered disk is a button: Tab to choose, Enter or Space to insert. Fast-forward stops at an unrecovered fault.
A complete archive again. Continue to compare all those swaps with one flash drive.
ZIP → Ventoy ↗A physical read error means the drive cannot deliver some sectors. A wrong or missing volume breaks sequence. Corrupt bytes may still be readable, but an archive checksum can reject them. A checksum detects inconsistency; it is not a backup. Recovery records can reconstruct limited damage when enough redundancy survives, not arbitrary missing data.
This model splits a synthetic payload into nominal floppy-sized pieces and verifies them in order. It does not compress actual files or emulate an archive format. Real multipart archives carry format-specific headers and may distribute files differently from a simple byte split.
The archived id Software announcement documents a separate seven-volume Quake shareware distribution: qsw091_1.zip through qsw091_7.zip. It does not identify Dennis’s stack. Nor does his memory establish that part 16 contained Nine Inch Nails music: original Quake CD-Audio was separate from the ordinary game files.
Archived announcement ↗STATION 05 / 05
My retro PC has a working ZIP-100 drive. Beside it is a 128 GB USB stick running Ventoy. Two real facts from my collection, illustrated here with generic original drawings.
ZIP / 100
Magnetic, removable, with a dedicated drive. Illustration of a typical cartridge, not a photograph of my hardware.
VENTOY / 128 GB
128 GB of nominal flash storage, not RAM. Ventoy lets me choose boot images from one device; partitions and filesystems consume space.
128,000,000,000 B
86,806 × floppy / 1,280 × ZIP-100
Capacity is one dimension. These numbers say nothing about transfer speed, write endurance or whether a modern game could run from this medium.
05 / 05 · COLLECTION COMPLETE
The part that stayed with me was not a benchmark. It was the wait after disk 16. Now the same curiosity fits on a little bootable stick.
Read the full story ↗ · Back to gallery · Computer MuseumSources checked: 2026-10-16. Game figures are published Windows storage requirements, not measured downloads. Early formats vary; all mechanisms are simplified original teaching illustrations. The personal recollection and hardware ownership are supplied by Dennis.
Original drawings: © Dennis Hilk. Actual Windows 95 handbook photographs and their separate Microsoft artwork credits appear in the article. No copyrighted game audio is embedded.