Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/28

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Subject: Re: Digital storage???
From: Bill Barrett <barrettb@dialup.websteruniv.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 13:32:10

Jim,

Right you are, of course. A friend who retired from Kodak R&D told me that
for years now they've had the capability of writing digital data accurately
_on the molecular level_! (How many molecules on the surface of a CD
platter?) The problem, he said, is manufacturing a drive that can _read_ it
back accurately, and pricing such a drive at anywhere near an affordable
level. Makes sense to me.

So what's the next word after terabyte (1000 terabytes)? My vote is for
gazigabyte, but I'm  sure someone already has something more technical and
rational -- and boring -- ready to go. Anyone? (I've been asking my
computer science colleagues for a while, and no one has had an answer yet.)

And dinner was wonderful, sans turkey or tofu, but with an array of
delightful dishes and loved ones around the table. Hope yours was and is
too, whether or not you celebrate this US holiday.

cheers
Bill

>Here in Silicon Valley, numerous storage manufacturers (Conners, Segate,
>etc.) are nearly ready to introduce TeraByte disk drives. And within
>another couple of years, terabyte drives will be small enough to fit in
>notebook computers. A terabyte is 1000 gigabytes (10 to the 12th power
>bytes. A trillion bytes). Within five years, storage methods, whether on
>media, silicon, or organic in nature, will surpass anything you can
>presently fathom. As digital technology progresses, receptors become higher
>in resolution and faster, lossless compression and massive storage will
>progress as well. The need for something fuels the fire to develop it.

>Hope all you USA LUGgers had your fill of either Turkey or Tofurkey.

Bill Barrett
St. Louis
barrettb@webster.edu (preferred address for personal mail)
http://www.webster.edu/~barrettb