On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:20:34 -0500, Paul Gilmartin wrote: >On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:43:36 -0700, Raymond Noal wrote: > >>Well, if your new DASD architecture was manufactured in the >>same manner as previous DASD devices, you would have 32,769 >>spinning platters to deal with and an access arm with 65,535 R/W >>heads to move back and forth with all of the implied momentum of >>a device that size. How tall do you think 32K of platters would be? >> >That's a big "if" and a somewhat remote "previous". > >32769? 2 surfaces per platter plus one for timing? OK. Is >There a taboo against using surface 0000? > >Depends on how thick the platters are. You forgot the smiley.
Indeed, one could build a 3390 with only one recording surface and an arm that has 15 heads. IAC, the emulation of such a large number of tracks per cylinder would probably not be too difficult. The real problem with that kind of architecture would be the software changes that would be needed. -- Tom Marchant ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
