- published: 09 Aug 2010
- views: 22850
A computer file is a block of arbitrary information, or resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage. A file is durable in the sense that it remains available for programs to use after the current program has finished. Computer files can be considered as the modern counterpart of paper documents which traditionally are kept in offices' and libraries' files, and this is the source of the term.
The word "file" was used publicly in the context of computer storage as early as February, 1950. In an RCA (Radio Corporation of America) advertisement in Popular Science Magazine describing a new "memory" vacuum tube it had developed, RCA stated:
In 1952 "file" was used in referring to information stored on punched cards. In early usage people regarded the underlying hardware (rather than the contents) as the file. For example, the IBM 350 disk drives were called "disk files". Systems like the Compatible Time-Sharing System introduced the concept of a file system, which managed several virtual "files" on one storage device, giving the term its present-day meaning. File names in CTSS had two parts, a user-readable "primary name" and a "secondary name" indicating the file type. This convention remains in use by several operating systems today, including Microsoft Windows. Although the current term "register file" shows the early concept of files, it has largely disappeared.