Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aglew From: aglew@oberon.crhc.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Data Storage density questions Message-ID: Date: 31 Jul 90 21:24:29 GMT References: <2635@mindlink.UUCP> <10048@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2684@network.ucsd.edu> <1990Jul31.183218.20342@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Organization: University of Illinois, Computer Systems Group Lines: 32 In-Reply-To: henry@zoo.toronto.edu's message of 31 Jul 90 18:32:18 GMT >How, exactly, do you keep the head one zillionth of an inch above the disk >surface, *without* touching it, in a vacuum? How about magnetic suspension? But that would get in the way of the recording, wouldn't it? (Several magnetic suspension techniques might be able to do the trick: superconductive pinning (remember the demos of the high temperature superconductors), the effect (I forget the name) whereby moving a magnet rapidly across a conductive sheet creates a repulsive "image" of the magnet in the sheet) I know disk heads do not fly in vacuum... but thought there were some possibilities here. -- Andy Glew, andy-glew@uiuc.edu Propaganda: UIUC runs the "ph" nameserver in conjunction with email. You can reach me at many reasonable combinations of my name and nicknames, including: andrew-forsyth-glew@uiuc.edu andy-glew@uiuc.edu sticky-glue@uiuc.edu and a few others. "ph" is a very nice thing which more USEnet sites should use. UIUC has ph wired into email and whois (-h garcon.cso.uiuc.edu). The nameserver and full documentation are available for anonymous ftp from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu, in the net/qi subdirectory.