Inventions in the electronic world have changed the course of our lives. Right from the laptops to the mobile phones we use, these weren’t so simple and easy devices back in the days when they were first invented and brought in the market.

They were bulky, space consuming, and had complex operating mechanisms, and even sometimes these devices actually required you to be an engineer and smart guy before you had any of them. Today in this article at FactoFusion, we are about to look at some of the giant devices and inventions that could now fit inside your pocket.

 4. First RAM Computer

RAM is the second most important component in our laptops and computers after the microprocessor, that we put most focus on, when we are about to get a new one. But do you know how the first computer that was operated on a RAM looked like?

The first RAM operated computer was developed by MIT Labs for the US Navy. This computer was named, the Whirlwind project and the entire computer weighed more than 20000 pounds. It was the first computer to work in real time and even process the commands in parallel sequence instead of serial processing. The project was directed by Jay Forrester, who discovered the first magnetic core memory that turned out to be the foundation of random-access storage, which we today call as the RAM.

The RAM in this computer had a total memory of 4KB. Yes, it was just 4KB. This memory is so small, that if it can even process a simple program or not is a question of doubt. The computer took 175 people that included 70 engineers and technicians to complete the entire project in 2 years of time span. The computer could be used to solve equations and display its result on the oscilloscope, but it also crashed in every 20 minutes.

The entire computer was designed using 5000 vacuum tubes which would generate huge amount of heat that made this computer even more difficult to operate. The vacuum tubes were later replaced by transistors for reducing size and this laid the foundation of modern computers and the computers we use now.

3. First Mobile Phone

Mobile phones have become the very first essential need of every individual. These handy devices serve the most important of human beings to communicate with each other from any part of the world. But these premium looking devices weren’t so elegant and handy back in 1983 when Motorola introduced the first handheld mobile phone.

DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercial mobile phone that weighed around 2 kilograms, and costed a whopping $3995 US dollars in 1984 which is equivalent to around $9700 US dollars. DynaTAC was an abbreviation for Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage. In this price point, you can get 9 brand new iPhone XS Max in today’s date.

Also unlike the mobile phone that have become the entertainment and broadcasting stations for many of its users, DyanTAC 8000x was only able to call on any one of the numbers from the 30 stored in the recall system. It had a small LED display for dialing, and its battery took around 10 hours to get fully charged, which provided a backup of 30 mins of talk time.

This mobile phone had all the numeric keys and some function keys to operate the mobile phone, and also had a long antenna at the top for network purposes. While this phone can be considered weirdly large and inconvenient, DynaTAC 8000x served as the first portable mobile phone that connected the users to the telephone networks, without any assistance of mobile operators.

2. First Music Player

Music is said to be the companion of every human being, no matter whether you are happy or sad, excited or nervous, music has served as the most beautiful companion for people. Some people are so freakish and insane about music that they just can’t imagine their life without it. But listening and enjoying music on your travels or even at your home was not so easy and simple as now.

iPod shuffle is till date considered to be the smallest music player that can fit right inside your pocket with almost 1000 songs in it. But have you ever thought to compare this beautiful tiny iPod created by Steve Jobs with the first ever music player in the world.

After the invention of Phonograph in 1877 by Thomas Edison, a device that was used to record and play music on cylinders. But 10 years later, Emile Berliner patented the gramophone, which was the first commercial music player. The gramophone was huge in size, and was used to record and play music on flat circular disk or records. The first record was made from glass, which was later made by zinc and finally by plastic.

Before finally settling down to the tiny iPod and our mobile devices as our, on the go music players, we made a large journey through some of the most gigantic music players to the ones which we have now. After the gramophone came the LPs, then all through the cassette tapes to the optical disks, we landed to the electronic music players and sharing systems such as Napster, against which the entire iPod and iTunes rolled up in the market.

1. First HDD

With the ever increasing demand of data and information in this modern age, with over a million TBs of data being generated each day we need faster and high amount of data storage systems. But unlike the SD Cards that can now even store a TB of data in less than a centimeter small microchip, storage devices weren’t the same back in the days when the first HDD was invented.

The first hard disk drive IBM 350 designed by IBM in 1953 weighed over a ton and stored a surprisingly small amount of only 3.75 MB of data. Compared to today’s storage devices, this hard disk drive could not even store a photograph shot from your latest iPhone.

But the story doesn’t end here. This hard disk drive had 50 platters of 24 inches in diameter that were used to store data for the first time on magnetic circular platters. The maximum average access time for data from this hard drive was 1 second.

Back in the time, a lot of other types of storage devices even made into the competition for the secondary storage, such as magnetic tape drives, drums, and floppy disks. With a lot of revolutionary development and improvement for the hard drives, IBM finally made its first hard disk drive in 1980 that crossed the barrier of 1 GB. This hard disk drive was called the IBM 3380, and could store 2.52GB of data and weighed around 250 kilograms which was encased in a cabinet of the size of your refrigerator now.

The first hard disk drive that was made available for the consumers in small compatible size was in 80’s which was 8 inches in size and could store around 5 MB of data. Improvements to the data storage, made the hard disk drives smaller upto 1.8 inches, along with other microchip storage devices such as SSD’s and SD cards.