ACM Queue - You Don't Know Jack about Disks - The geometric programming model that coincided with the physical organization of data posed several challenges for the programmer.
Magnetic disk drives have been at the heart of computer systems since the early 1960s. They brought not only a significant advantage in processing performance, but also a new level of complexity for programmers. The three-dimensional geometry of a disk drive replaced the simple, linear, address spacetape-based programming model.