Re: "disk drives the size of top-loading washing machines"
The ones I worked with in the 70s were more like a chest of drawers (imagine 2 deep drawers) that held a pair of disk packs. A junior operator was tasked with changing the upper pack and quite correctly checked that the spin light was off before yanking the drawer open. A quick-thinking shift leader supervising the operation quickly yanked him away, probably saving serious injury at minimum as a couple of kilograms of furiously spinning pack popped upwards out of the drive drawer. A couple of days later company engineers fitted a field change order altering the spin light to a safe-to-open light so that a dead bulb wouldn't result in possible fatalities!
The errant pack fell back into the drawer, destroying itself and the drive mechanism and had a good go at inflicting hearing damage to those in the vicinity.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
