Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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Paper data storage refers to the use of paper as a data storage device. This includes writing, illustrating, and the use of data that can be interpreted by a machine or is the result of the functioning of a machine. A defining feature of paper data storage is the ability of humans to produce it with only simple tools and interpret it visually.
| Computer memory and data storage types |
|---|
| Volatile |
| Non-volatile |
Though now mostly obsolete, paper was once an important form of computer data storage as both paper tape and punch cards were a common staple of working with computers before the 1980s.
Before paper was used for storing data, it had been used in several applications for storing instructions to specify a machine's operation. The earliest use of paper to store instructions for a machine was the work of Basile Bouchon who, in 1725, used punched paper rolls to control textile looms. This technology was later developed into the wildly successful Jacquard loom. The 19th century saw several other uses of paper for controlling machines. In 1846, telegrams could be prerecorded on punched tape and rapidly transmitted using Alexander Bain's automatic telegraph. Several inventors took the concept of a mechanical organ and used paper to represent the music.
Binary punched card
In the late 1880s Herman Hollerith invented the recording of data on a medium that could then be read by a machine. Prior uses of machine readable media, above, had been for control (automatons, piano rolls, looms, ...), not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards..."[1] Hollerith's method was used in the 1890 census. Hollerith's company eventually became the core of IBM.
Other technologies were also developed that allowed machines to work with marks on paper instead of punched holes. This technology was widely used for tabulating votes and grading standardized tests. Banks used magnetic ink on checks, supporting MICR scanning.
In an early electronic computing device, the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, electric sparks were used to singe small holes in paper cards to represent binary data. The altered dielectric constant of the paper at the location of the holes could then be used to read the binary data back into the machine by means of electric sparks of lower voltage than the sparks used to create the holes. This form of paper data storage was never made reliable and was not used in any subsequent machine.
Barcodes make it possible for any object that was to be sold or transported to have some computer readable information securely attached to it. Universal Product Code barcodes, first used in 1974, are ubiquitous today. Some people recommend a width of at least 3 pixels for each minimum-width gap and each minimum-width bar for 1D barcodes. The density is about 50 bits per linear inch (about 2 bit/mm).
2D barcodes allow to store much more data on paper, up to 2.9 kbyte per barcode. It is recommended to have a width of at least 4 pixels—e.g., a 4 × 4 pixel = 16 pixel module.[2]
The limits of data storage depend on the technology to write and read such data. The theoretical limits assume a scanner that can perfectly reproduce the printed image at its printing resolution, and a program which can accurately interpret such an image. For example, an 8 in × 10 in (200 mm × 250 mm) 600 dpi black-and-white image contains 3.43 MiB of data, as does a 300 dpi CMYK printed image. A 2,400 ppi True color (24-bit) image contains about 1.29 GiB of information; printing an image maintaining this data would require a printing resolution of about 120,000 dpi in black and white, or 60,000 dpi with CMYK dots.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Paper data storage refers to the use of paper as a data storage device. This includes writing, illustrating, and the use of data that can be interpreted by a machine or is the result of the functioning of a machine. A defining feature of paper data storage is the ability of humans to produce it with only simple tools and interpret it visually. Though now mostly obsolete, paper was once an important form of computer data storage as both paper tape and punch cards were a common staple of working with computers before the 1980s.
Cauzin Softstrip was a two-dimensional barcode format intended for paper data storage, allowing magazines to distribute computer programs by printing a barcode which stored the program. The barcodes were printed initially in BYTE's October 1985 issue as a "printing experiment" and later publicly introduced in November 1985 at COMDEX. Softstrip barcodes encoded less than a thousand bytes per square inch, a result being that large files would occupy a large surface area in a magazine. The barcodes didn't work well if the magazine ink was smeared; and the reader hardware was relatively expensive at around $200. In addition to publishing Softstrips in magazines, Cauzin distributed software to retailers across the US via standalone Softstrip cards under the name StripWare.
In computing, a removable media is a data storage media that is designed to be readily inserted and removed from a system. Most early removable media, such as floppy disks and optical discs, require a dedicated read/write device (i.e. a drive) to be installed in the computer, while others, such as USB flash drives, are plug-and-play with all the hardware required to read them built into the device, so only need a driver software to be installed in order to communicate with the device. Some removable media readers/drives are integrated into the computer case, while others are standalone devices that need to be additionally installed or connected. Examples of removable media that require a dedicated reader drive include: Optical discs, e.g. Blu-rays (both standard and UHD versions), DVDs, CDs Flash memory-based memory cards, e.g. CompactFlash, Secure Digital, Memory Stick Magnetic storage media Floppy and Zip disks (now considered obsolete) Disk packs (now considered obsolete) Magnetic tapes Paper data storage, e.g. punched cards, punched tapes (now considered obsolete) Examples of removable media that are standalone plug-and-play devices that carry their own reader hardwares include: USB flash drives Portable storage devices Dedicated external solid-state drives (SSD) Enclosured mass storage drives, i.e. modified hard disk drives (HDD)/internal SSDs Peripheral devices that have integrated data storage capability Digital cameras Mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and handheld game consoles Portable media players Other external or dockable peripherals that have expandable removable media capabilities, usually via a USB port or memory card reader USB hubs Wired or wireless printers Network routers, access points and switches Using removable media can pose some computer security risks, including viruses, data theft and the introduction of malware.
Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are considered by some as data storage. Recording may be accomplished with virtually any form of energy. Electronic data storage requires electrical power to store and retrieve data. Data stored in a digital, machine-readable medium is called digital data. Computer data storage is one of the core functions of a general-purpose computer. Electronic documents can be stored in much less space than paper documents. Barcodes and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) are two ways of recording machine-readable data on paper.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.