IBM 1360

IBM 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System was an online archival storage system for large data centers. It was the first storage device designed from the start to hold a terabit of data (128 GB) The 1360 stored data on index card sized pieces of stiff photographic film that were individually retrieved and read. Only six PDSSs were constructed, including the prototype, and IBM abandoned the film-card system and moved on to other storage systems soon after. Only one similar commercial system seems to have been developed, the Foto-Mem FM 390, from the late 1960s. The system used pneumatics to move the film cards between the more complex developer system, the reader/copier, and a much larger store. Users would look up keywords stored on an IBM 1405 hard disk system, identifying individual documents to be retrieved. The Walnut system retrieved the documents, copied them onto a film strip and developed it, and then inserted four such images into an aperture card. The card could be read directly on a microfilm reader, or used as negatives for full-sized printouts.