Hello from Gregg C Levine usually with Jedi Knight Computers
As I recall IBM built an magnetic drum based setup for their mainframe
during the days before the S/30 became current. And the Optical disk idea
that Mike Allison is looking for, or at, was also setup by them, it has
since been discontinued.
Gregg C Levine mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Use the Force, Luke." Obi-Wan Kenobi
"Trust in the Force, Luke, and wait." Obi-Wan Kenobi
"The Force will be with you. Always. " Obi-Wan Kenobi
"May the Force be with you. And to you" Anonymous
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of David Lloyd-Jones
> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 6:33 AM
> To: Mike Allison; m100; elks
> Subject: Re: Off Topic MiniDisc/Optical disc
>
>
>
> From: "Mike Allison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asks:
>
> > is the MiniDisc of MD fame related to the optical disc systems such as
> those
> > found on the NeXT? Or other small(?) capacity Optical Disc systems? I
> was
> > just wondering if anyone had examined ways to use the MD, or I was just
> > walking down a well trod path.
>
>
> I don't know what "the MiniDisc of MD fame " means -- maybe you could fill
> me in, Mike -- but this note tempts me to wonder why we use spinning media
> for memory storage so much more than we use linear or arrayed banks of
> rememberers.
>
> Isn't it because we all came up with gasoline engines, and implicitly
> coal-fired steam, in our veins?
>
> Only now being born are the first generation of children for whom motors
> that go thump-thump-thump, torque-stores that go whrrrrr through
> the nights,
> are out in daddies' attic memories, for whom directly addressed arrays are
> normal.
>
> * * *
>
> <ASIDE FOR THE YOUNG> When the 0.7th generation of computers were being
> built, in England in the 1940's, they had their core memory in magnetic
> spots on rotating metal drums.
>
> The systems coders would optimise their code for the next time
> the drum came
> around, an easily identifiable number of milli-, not yet micro-, seconds
> away.
>
> Then they got switched over to memory-swimming-in-a-bath-of-mercury, and
> found that their operating system was not quite as optimal as they had
> thought...
>
> </ASIDE FOR THE YOUNG>
>
> * * *
>
> For a couple of generations in there, writing code to get what you needed
> was an alien notion: "Wha? Hoo? Me? Me write a script to get what
> I need out
> of the system?? Nahhh, Go away with ya..."
>
> That was the normal way ordinary people thought, from about 1950 through
> maybe 2010.
>
> Only when kids came up with their own TV sets, the first bunch programming
> their Microsoft Expedias from their potty-stools, the second wave looking
> over their mothers' breasts at the WholeNet(tm) which they control, as we
> all know, myoelectically with the chip that is installed while they get
> their silver nitrate eye-drops at birth..
>
> * * *
>
> This generation were the first of our race to understand DMA
> (direct memory
> addressing) in a visceral way, and thus to pioneer the way from the age of
> machines into the Age Of Touch in which we revel and glory today.
>
> We certainly admire those people who made the MiniDisc of MD fame, just as
> we admire a monkey that can wash a potato or an American that can drive a
> carcar.
>
> Still, those things are in our past, and we are grateful to be
> rid of them.
>
>
> -dlj.
>
>
>
>
>
>
