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From: dag@persoft.com (Daniel A. Glasser)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Memory cube
Message-ID: <1991May06.215513.12022@persoft.com>
Date: 6 May 91 21:55:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: persoft.1991May06.215513.12022
References: <1991May01.185953.17346@ux1.cts.eiu.edu>
Organization: Persoft, Inc.
Lines: 61

Anyone remember magnetic bubble memory?  The prototypes and hype for
bubble memory go back, I believe, to the 1960's (or maybe the 1950's)
but by the time they got that technology both reliable and affordable,
semiconductor memory which was faster, cheaper and more compact (though
volitile) severly limited its application and it sort of died.

I'm not predicting that the holographic plastic cube memory (which is
what this thing is) will go the same way, though they put a rather vague
time frame on this stuff.  The idea's been around for a LONG time.  It's
been mentioned in speculative fiction over the years.  I think that HAL's
memory (in "2001, A Space ...") was supposed to be holographic.  The
potential density in this kind of storage is phenominal provided that the
optical technology advances allow inexpensive, compact, and stable
self-calibrating read/write mechanisms.

I'm not an expert on the technology, and the poster did not state that
the cube is read by introducing a beam along one of the axis and seeing
where the beam comes out.  Vibration and temperature (and maybe even
humidity) will effect where the beam exits.

Are these cubes actually random access, or are they read as a continuous
data stream from which the memory controller extracts the bits that are
being addressed?  Even given that the storage will be available, will we
be able to effectively use it, or will it just become a non-rotating
block storage device?  How well does this technology scale?  (If a 1cm cube
can hold gigabytes, how 'bout a 1" cube?  Long live the English measurement
system!)

Aside from computer data, this type of technolgy offers some rather interesting
consumer items --

	Video and audio libraries available shrink wrapped in the
	checkout lines of grocery stores everywhere.

	Combined with heads-up displays, navigation systems for your
	car where the entire world road atlas is stored in your dashboard
	and can be updated on a continual basis by side-band broadcasts.

	Ditto with the news.

	Incredable role-playing multimedia games where multiple scenarios
	based on each decision point can be seamlessly branched.

and one of my favorites...

	A new style of video recording, where the event/performance/scene/etc.
	is recorded from many angles at once and the viewer gets to choose
	which view {s,}he is going to view from moment to moment, maybe
	multiple views at once on a split screen (or multiple screens.)

I can go on and on... (and already have.)

					Daniel A. Glasser

Disclaimer:
	My views are not necessarily those of my employer.  Void where
	prohibited by law.  Unix(tm) is a trademark of AT&T, and appears
	only once in this article (here.)
-- 
          Daniel A. Glasser  |  Persoft, Inc.  |  dag@persoft.com
                "Their brains were small, and they died."