I had the opportunity to take my little fellas to the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Historic Site recently, a site which I’ve visited multiple times.  I wrote a magazine article about this site when it first opened, and for that article I was able to spend the entire day below ground in the capsules taking photos.  I’ve been back since from time to time, but this was the first opportunity I had to bring my kids with me.  This time I spotted a couple of things I hadn’t looked at closely before.

Yes, it’s a heavy duty floppy drive.  There are actually two in this rack, mounted side by side.  I must admit I’m actually impressed that it looks like a 5 1/4″ drive, not the old 8″ drives that I would have expected.

And how about this?  A modem!  Another term that most people don’t hear often, unless they’re cable internet subscribers.  Even then, we’re talking about baud versus megabit these days.  I remember 300baud or bps in my freshman year of college…that was painful.  Compare that with the 70+ megabit service that I enjoy in my home office now, and it makes it seem like I was computing via telegraph!

It just goes to show that there’s always an opportunity to encounter, and be fascinated by, something you’ve previously missed.  If you’d like to look at many more photos from this intriguing historic site, click here for the photos from my first trip to the newly-opened site.