Before networks what was used to transfer files?

Answer 1

Be careful not to confuse the history of the PC with the history of computing. The first computers used paper tape. In America punched cards became popular and spread, because they were born of pre computer office systems for which there were a wide range of sorting machines and it was possible to extract and modify one card if, for example, you had a customers address wrong. However, a tray of cards took 2,000 cards and dropping a tray could be a life changing experience. In addition the long knives on the readers could fillet a large number of cards as you watched. A card sorter which sorts 5,000 cards a minute (say) on one column could fillet and destroy a large number of cards before you had chance to hit the off switch. Bear in mind it was mostly one column at a time, sorting these cards could be a life's work.

Paper tape - often one column per character - had a lot going for it. Really it was the first computer medium, pioneered for that purpose at Bletchley Park, but widely used long before the 40s. It was much more reliable that cards, longer lasting and easier to handle, but you couldn't sort the information in that form. In particular you could put it straight on a teleprinter and send it world wide. In those days IBM would kill before they would allow a paper tape reader on one of their machines.

Then came mag tapes, running at about 21Mchar on a 2,400 foot reel. Good but you always needed a copy because the drive would shred a tape without any warning. There was also a small matter that the formats on the tape were hopelessly over complicated. Sub files with their headers within sub files within files and so on. It was so complicated that one manufacturer included the full text of Eskimo Nell on a systems tape and it was several years before anybody found it. My library numbered about 15,000 tapes and a general restore was something of a nightmare.

We then got 6Mchar EDS which were the size of a washing machine, the packs were not light and the operating system crucified them, attempting transfer rates which the designers had never considered. We then went up through 30Mchr EDS and onto 60s. At one point I had 70 EDS 60s in the Computer room, and by that point ergonomics demanded separate operating stations for each major function. In the case of the laser printers they were on line, but mostly serviced by walking a mag tape from the mag tape area beside the mag tape library. I believe at that stage we were using 4.5 tonnes of paper a week. on 1 metre calendar rolls.

You asked about floppies. And what would one of those be, pray?