Behind the Build: Exploring Lexar’s 30 Years of Innovation and the Longsys Ecosystem

The Longsys facility in ZhongShan is actually quite large and encompasses a number of buildings all dedicated to different purposes.  For instance, one building contained their automated testing platforms while another was a Memory History Exhibition that discussed the history of memory.

While most of us would assume computer storage when thinking about the history of memory but it really encompasses anything used to store a memory including physical ropes, paper and even a metal disk.  Of course, these are all analog mechanical devices but all served as a stepping stone for the electrotechnical digital methods we use today.

As you can imagine, the exhibits were from an Asian perspective with many of the displays featuring Chinese people including a core rope memory display featuring Dr An Wang who was a computer engineer and co-founder of the computer company Wang Laboratories.

There were also some PDP and Univac machines on display along with a no-so-well cared for Compaq Presario 460.  This one is a bit surprising since it is a relatively modern PC featuring an Intel 486 processor but did support a number of different storage options from floppy disks, hard drives and tape drives.