Re: Where did CKD disks come from?

John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:

Any idea who invented CKD?  The Pugh et al history book says a lot about
disk hardware but nothing about software or CKD.  Someone must have invented
it but who?  When?

not who but why:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/24074/how-did-reserve-tracks-work-on-early-hard-disks
Count Key Data was IBM's answer to unify three very different methods of
data storage (Disk, Drum, Cells) into a single interface, while at the
same time offloading basic tasks to hardware.

discussion "spare tracks" & "standard configuration"
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2014/07/102739924-05-03-acc.pdf
Jack: That was the first time in a sense that you had an index, which is now
standard configuration.
Al: Right.
Jack: Standard configuration. The other thing that we did, that we
subsequently cursed a lot, was the idea of variable record length and count
key data as the format. I don't know if IBM's gotten rid of that yet.

... seems to imply collective "we" team/group

and more discussion of 1301&1311 to CKD 2311 (disk)
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/IBM_1311_2311/IBM_1311_2311.oral_history.2005.102657931.pdf

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970