Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mailrus!iuvax!cdaf
From: cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: non-volatile core memory
Message-ID: <33172@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 90 17:53:09 GMT
References: <10257@microsoft.UUCP> <514@intelisc.nosun.UUCP>
Reply-To: cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger)
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 20

In article <514@intelisc.nosun.UUCP> shannon@isc.intel.com (Shannon Nelson) writes:
o 
o forgetting its data.  Well, I recently saw an article about a new
o laptop computer from Psion pls of London.  It uses Intel's Flash
o memory for main memory and to replace the mechanical hard disk for
o file storage.  ROM Mess-DOS is used for the OS, and Microsoft wrote
o ... 

Hmmm... Let me put my foot in my mouth for a moment:  From what I
understand, flash memories still have some of the same problems
EPROM's and EEPROM's have:  They are still only good for between
10^5 to 10^6 write/erase cycles due to electron tunneling problems. 
That seems to make them almost usable for disk, but certainly not
usable for main memory.

-charles
-- 
Charles Daffinger  >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water<  (812) 339-7354
cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu             			 
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