A researcher for IBM in San Jose, Calif., Johnson led the team which developed the computer disk drive in 1956. Faster to access than tape, the “Random Access Method of Accounting Control” drive revolutionized the way data were stored. Delivered to its first customer on September 13, 1956, RAMAC used as many as fifty 24-inch platters and had a capacity of 5 MB; it weighed 2,000 pounds.
Johnson did not dislike tape, however: he also developed the half-inch video tape cassette for Sony, as well as the “Scantron” grading system using answer sheets filled in by millions of students with a No. 2 pencil during multiple choice tests. Johnson died September 15 of cancer at age 92.
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This was the first short-form Honorary Unsubscribe that left me deeply unsatisfied — so much so, I expanded it into a 14-minute podcast episode (which page includes a full transcript). -rc