The first two hardrives I had experience were not that big, but still required to people to get into the cabinet. A Fujitsu Eagle and a CDC I can’t remember which model that had 5MB fixed and 5MB removable.
If it was a TV show set in the 1980s and it depicted a scene that look like that you’d say it was unrealistic. That is the most 80s photo I’ve ever seen everything about it is so stereotypical of action movies of the time.
I just love the fact that the US secret service used Uzi’s, a weapon that has always been about form over function I know it works, but there are much better options.
MP5A3s (possibly MP5A5s, but MP5A3s seem more overall popular with law enforcement, and full auto seems more like what USSS would choose.). I’ve never seen MP5Ks in USSS hands, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn about them.
Remington 870 PGO shotguns. Probably intended for breaching, but possibly for less-than-lethal rounds. The USSS agent in the photo is carrying 5.56mm magazines, making the shotgun clearly not the primary long weapon.
I kind of feel like it was chosen for the cool factor. Because there’s no way in the hell that a professional would look at all of the weapons they had on offer and choose that one.
Keeping in mind that the Uzi was concealed in a briefcase, making overall length a limiting factor, the choice is not strange for the early 1980s.
The Uzi has a ten inch barrel despite its very compact size, and a controllable 600RPM. And there’s no rule in real life that says it has to be fired on full auto.
The natural competition that comes to mind would be an MP5K. However it has no stock, a 4.5 inch barrel, and a higher full auto rate of fire. That variant had also only been introduced a few years before.
The USSS did eventually adopt MP5A3s/MP5A5s and P90s but those are carried more openly with less emphasis on concealment, at least within the restraint of a briefcase carry like in the Reagan era.
Other than the Uzi, many weapons would seemingly be too large for the desired concealment (carbines), too foreign (Skorpion machine pistols for example), or straight up inferior (MAC-10s). Of what’s left, the Uzi is not going to be outlandish in comparison.
The other site in the running was adjacent to Fermilab in Batavia, IL. It would have cost much less to build there, because it would have used the existing ring as a pre-accelerator, and the human capital necessary was already in the vicinity. Not only was it going to be more costly to construct in Texas, it would be more costly to maintain as well; I recall something about the insect population in Texas being much more detrimental to the concrete.
This was all being planned and organized in the 1980s, and I think Bush being Vice President (and then President through 92) may have had something to do with it going to Texas.
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