Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic Recording Main Menu About Abstract for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U P Introduction Introduction to Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic Recording Notes Notes for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U P Media Media for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U P Acknowledgments Acknowledgments for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U P Technical Information Technical Information for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U P References References for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U P This essay is part of the “New Media” special issue of American Literature (volume 85, number 4, December 2013). See http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230. Version 1 of the site is (c) 2013 by Duke University Press.

A Materialist Approach to Hard Drives

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For a thoroughly materialist approach to the hard drive and contemporary magnetic recording, see Kirschenbaum (2008). In the first chapter, Kirschenbaum claims, quite importantly, that “computer storage media also have their affordances, but as storage in general has become more capacious and less immediately tangible it is easy to overlook them. . . . Attention to the affordances of various kinds of storage media can reveal much about computing in different contexts, allowing us to reconstruct salient aspects of now-obsolete systems and the human practices that attended them” (32).

(This note comments on the page titled, "A Prehistory for Today's Computing," as well as the attached image titled, "Hard Disk Drive with Disks and Motor Hub Removed.")

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  1. Notes Jentery Sayers