History
The word "file" was used publicly in the context of computer storage as early as February, 1950. In an RCA (Radio Corporation of America) advertisement in Popular Science Magazine describing a new "memory" vacuum tube it had developed, RCA stated:
- "...the results of countless computations can be kept "on file" and taken out again. Such a "file" now exists in a "memory" tube developed at RCA Laboratories. Electronically it retains figures fed into calculating machines, holds them in storage while it memorizes new ones - speeds intelligent solutions through mazes of mathematics."
In 1952 "file" was used in referring to information stored on punched cards. In early usage people regarded the underlying hardware (rather than the contents) as the file. For example, the IBM 350 disk drives were called "disk files". Systems like the Compatible Time-Sharing System introduced the concept of a file system, which managed several virtual "files" on one storage device, giving the term its present-day meaning. File names in CTSS had two parts, a user-readable "primary name" and a "secondary name" indicating the file type. This convention remains in use by several operating systems today, including Microsoft Windows. Although the current term "register file" shows the early concept of files, it has largely disappeared.
Read more about this topic: Computer File
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)