[ale] how do I list big files

[Tom Freeman]

I must have gotten started late or something. The biggest (physical) drive 
platters I got to deal with were 12 inch 5 MB platters for a RL02 drive 
from DEC. Between the platter and the travel case a heavy beast to lug 
around. So of course I had to dog trot one and personal gear through the 
length of Washington National airport. Years ago and I was in better "out 
of shape" then. Spent the flight home trying to stop huffing and puffing.

On Mon, 21 Mar 2011, jim wrote:

> I used to clean the "fixed" platter by hand! I had a plastic flat stick
> and I slid a cotton sock looking thing over it. Then I sprayed it with
> this chemical and wiped the surface of the disk as I turned it by hand.
> I also slid the cleaning swab between the heads to clean them. It's
> weird to think about it now. I think the fixed platter was 2.5 MB and
> the removable platter was another 2.5 MB for a total of 5. And it was
> HUGE. Like 18" across or something.
>
> On 03/20/2011 10:39 PM, Ron Frazier wrote:
>> Yup. Times sure have changed a lot since then. I used to work with some
>> of those giant drives at Delta Air Lines. A whole stack of ~ 15"
>> platters held a whopping 300 MB. It was made very clear to me that you
>> had to shut those down properly and treat them gingerly.
>>
>> Ron
>>
>> On 03/20/2011 09:26 PM, Scott Castaline wrote:
>>> On 03/20/2011 04:07 PM, Ron Frazier wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Scott,
>>>>
>>>> That's pretty cool. It was good of you to check before shutting down.
>>>> That's one thing I try to reinforce to anyone I advise about computers
>>>> of modern vintage, never never just power off. Always use the shutdown
>>>> procedure and wait for it to finish. Modern drives will autopark the
>>>> heads, but you don't want a bunch of open OS and applications files
>>>> hanging around at power off.
>>>> Ron
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Actually if memory serves me correctly the heads not parking or just
>>> landing wherever they were at power off was on stepper drives and the
>>> one or two servo drives at the time did auto-retract at power off. When
>>> I started with UNIX on mini systems and super-minis the HDDs used then
>>> had the large 18" platter(s) and were servo controlled with huge
>>> voice-coils that the heads would retract into. The first time I used a
>>> DOS system I thought it strange that you only had to enter the date&
>>> time after turning it on. When I went to shut it off I entered my
>>> usually shutdown -g0 -y and it gave me an error, probably something like
>>> Command not found and I was afraid to just shut it off. After making a
>>> call to NY from FL I had some doubts and confusion that if you're at a C
>>> prompt just flip the switch. I also knew nothing about stepper drives at
>>> the time as I never seen a small drive before at least a hard drive. Had
>>> 2 floppies and a cassette on my Commodore 64, which to me was a toy at
>>> first.
>>>
>>>> On 03/20/2011 03:37 PM, Scott Castaline wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 03/20/2011 11:28 AM, Ron Frazier wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the tips.  I suspected it was something like that, but didn't
>>>>>> know what.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm learning all the time, but it's a slow process.  I've been learning
>>>>>> DOS / Windows for 26 years, Linux for 1 year.  It will take a while to
>>>>>> develop comprehensive knowledge.  The first part of the learning curve
>>>>>> is the hardest.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ron
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> I went the other way, UNIX first than DOS. It cost me a $5 LD call to
>>>>> find out that DOS didn't have a shutdown command. I later wrote a bat
>>>>> file that parked the heads and echoed "Safe to Power Down!"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 03/20/2011 10:21 AM, Michael Trausch wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes,>      is the shell redirection operator. 2>      says to redirect CD
>>>>>>> number two, which is the stderr stream.  Without an integer supplied,
>>>>>>> the stdout stream (number 1) is the default.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The<      operator is input redirection. Its default target is the
>>>>>>> process' fd 0 (stdin), though again that can be changed. A program
>>>>>>> that, for example, opened a socket connection as fd 5 and fd 6 could
>>>>>>> be used with shell redirection (and even fancier pipelining) if desired.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Again, I think you should spend some time getting familiar with "UNIX"
>>>>>>> as a whole.  Even concepts from the late 60s and 70s are still
>>>>>>> applicable on moden systems, and the basics are essentially unchanged.  :)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Sent from my phone... a G2 running CM7 nightlies!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>
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