Newsgroups: comp.arch Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Data Storage density questions Message-ID: <1990Jul31.183218.20342@zoo.toronto.edu> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: <2635@mindlink.UUCP> <10048@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2684@network.ucsd.edu> Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 18:32:18 GMT In article <2684@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes: >You mean disk drives are not evacuated? ... >Come to think of it, why not? I should think that it would be nice to >be able to position the head without worrying about such ugly things as the >viscocity of air and its pressure & temperature and the roughness of the >platter.... How, exactly, do you keep the head one zillionth of an inch above the disk surface, *without* touching it, in a vacuum? The precision vertical positioning of the head is done "for free" by the air cushion between it and the disk. Doing it mechanically is much harder. -- The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology Verne reprint is to a modern SF novel. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry