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From: njk@diku.dk (Niels J|rgen Kruse)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Data Storage density questions
Message-ID: <1990Jul30.231835.13898@diku.dk>
Date: 30 Jul 90 23:18:35 GMT
References: <2635@mindlink.UUCP> <10048@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Department Of Computer Science, University Of Copenhagen
Lines: 17

lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
>Specifically, it would be nice if we scanned a laser beam over the
>media, rather than rotated the media.  Or, at least, did the "head"
>movement that way.  There was hope for this sort of thing, a decade
>ago, and somehow it never happened.  I believe that the best spatial
>modulators had very limited angular effect (...)

Would you care to elaborate on this?  What kind of spatial modulators?

A small mirror mounted on piezoelectric crystal perhaps?
A mirror mounted like this has been controlled at up to 1 Khz,
i believe (used in a laser sculpture, drawing moving figures
with a laser beam).
A seektime of a few milliseconds doesn't sound too bad.

Even if the angular effect is small, wouldn't it be a simple
matter to increase it with some sort of lens arrangement?
-- 
Niels J|rgen Kruse 	DIKU Graduate 	njk@diku.dk