Photos: Making the first disk drive

John Haanstra, left, initiated a study of the system implications of large-scale random access. His work changed the course of the computer industry.

On the right is the world's first data-processing system for storing computer data on magnetic disks. The system enabled the handling of transactions as they occurred. This demonstrated the path to the online, real-time applications that are so prevalent today.

Photo by Magnetic Disk Heritage Center