Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!gandalf.cs.cmu.edu!lindsay
From: lindsay@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Optical Tape
Message-ID: <12620@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 9 Apr 91 04:47:43 GMT
References: <12608@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <3318@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 18

In article <3318@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> 
	davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>  Now the question is, how much is the media, and can you find a given
>place on it in a reasonable time?

The media is polymer - mostly polyester - plus some organic dye and
sputtered metal. If any volume at all develops, this should be 
competitive (in $/MB) with helical-scan mag tape, but shelf life
should be a lot higher.

Creo writes an address track with great big bits, that can be read
during a fast scan. They claim their tape drive can random-access
an 80 KB block in at most one minute. (Hey: a 24 bit address space!)

Kodak and I are agreed on one thing: the rise of computerized images
is going to push the whole storage question.
-- 
Don		D.C.Lindsay .. temporarily at Carnegie Mellon Robotics