2002-11-16 I'll bet it has to do with the Japanese influence. They do prefer metric. They may have given in on the floppy being named in FFU, but they most likely did not care as long as the actual physical dimensions are metric.
If Philips wants a Japanese blessing, then they have no choice but to stop kissing up to FFU interests and start doing it the metric way. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 2002-11-16 15:44 Subject: [USMA:23406] Specifications Blue ray disk > Work on the successor of the DVD is already going on. The new disk, the Blue > Ray Disk, will be enclosed in a cartridge and can store 27 GiB of data on > one layer. It works with blue laser. Here are some of its specifications and > they are all hard metric: > Storage: 27 GiB single layer, 54 GiB double layer > Laser wavelength: 405 nm, blue violet > Data speed: 36 MiB/s > Diameter of disk: 120 mm > Thickness of disk: 1.2 mm > The distance between two pits is 0.5 um (I can not use the correct symbol > for micro) > The protection layer is 0.1 mm, with DVDs that is 0.6 mm > > We must seek to prevent our inch-friends from pulling the same stunt with > this new technology they did with the so-called 3.5 inch floppy disk. > > Our own electronics company, Philips, infatuated with USC for many years and > inventor of hard inch equipment like the 3.81 mm (0.15 inch) music tape and > the videodisk (12 of these units), is developing a small optical blue laser > disk, not with a diameter of 1 inch but of 3 cm, that can store 1GiB on one > layer. > When the videodisk was presented somewhere in the eighties a person asked > why the metric system had not been used for its conception and development. > They looked at him as if he were some weird animal, while in fact THEY where > the weird animals because of their bizarre and incomprehensible choice of a > system of units. (not that ifp can really be called a 'system' of course) > > Han > Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands > >
