[rsi_oww]

I did something like this when I was a kid, in QuickBasic. Not as sophisticated - it would just randomly create, append to, and delete files.

I tested it on floppy disks - if you let it run for a while, the remaining free space was so fragmented it was almost unusable. You could hear the poor floppy drive seeking like crazy just to open a tiny text file.

The fun part was defragmenting it afterwards - I miss the days of the graphical defrag that Norton and MS had.

[upperclasstwit]

That was such a pure pleasure. I can't exactly picture it but I remember it was sort of like watching your dwarf fortress.

[nitrogen]

My favorite ones would show you a grid representing all the clusters on the disk. You would see an open block for free space and a solid block for allocated space.

Then it would highlight a span of blocks to indicate reading.

Finally it would write those clusters elsewhere, indicating so with a different color.

Edit: Uhh.. and HN deleted my diagrams. See http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=nKHddiKe

[ars]

For your enjoyment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPv1gQ5Rs8A

[nitrogen]

Neat. I had one for DOS too that would go left-to-right instead of top-to-bottom, but I don't remember if it was a Norton tool or something else. It was mesmerizing to me as a kid to watch data moving around on the hard drive and the computer magically getting faster.

[mmozeiko]

Norton Speed Disk? http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/wordpress/wp-con...

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The Windows 95 Defragmenter was probably based on this, since it has a Symantec copyright alongside Microsoft's.

[Serow225]

Agreed, very soothing and hypnotic to watch!

[digi_owl]

You can get graphical defragers today...

[Vexs]

Defraggler is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. I love that kind of interactivity in applications, so much better than a loading bar.

[digi_owl]

My first thought as well, but apparently there is another one.

http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/en/index.html

Seems it even offers a terminal interface for the real nostalgic kick.

[Vexs]

Hah, that's fun. Who doesn't like a terminal gui?