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:
“The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)