Re: OT: Who? What? Was: Re: Origin of "partition" in storage devices

[Will Cooke via cctalk]

> On 02/01/2022 4:08 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 

> Good grief, it took DEC all that time? CDC was doing it in the 1960s.
> Had to, because of the wide variety of RMS available. I think that
> one of the early 2311 clone drives (854?) used 256-byte (8 bit byte)
> hard-sectored media, which isn't very friendly to systems with 60 bit
> words. I recall that several sectors were used to create a logical
> 60-bit word addressable sector, with a substantial part of the last
> sector of a logical PRU left unused.
> 
> --Chuck

LTA predates that considerably and is the earliest I am aware of.

LTA (Logical Tooth Addressing) was created in the 1850's by Babbage to avoid 
the "shaft, gear, tooth" addressing he had been using in his "store."  The 
teeth of all gears were numbered sequentially (starting at 0 of course) across 
all the gears and shafts.  He even kept a few spare gears in a drawer for wear 
leveling.  

It's believed the idea actually originated with Ada since it made her task much 
easier.

Will