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From: michael@vlsi.caltech.edu@caip.RUTGERS.EDU
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Expand at your own risk!
Message-ID: <1355@caip.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sun, 23-Feb-86 15:35:49 EST
Article-I.D.: caip.1355
Posted: Sun Feb 23 15:35:49 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 05:00:11 EST
Sender: daemon@caip.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: michael@vlsi.caltech.edu

I advise everyone to not buy either fixed hard disks or memory for their
Amiga yet.  We are about to see the next quantum leap in the capacity of
memory chips, to 1 megabit per chip.  A company called TheSys has
announced a single IBM PC expansion board containing 8 megabytes of 1
megabit chips.  Actually the board contains 12 MB;  the extra capacity is
used to implement error correction on board.  The memory is CMOS, meaning
it can be backed up with batteries.  Cost: $800.  Granted that it doesn't
need to be as fast for an IBM as for an Amiga, this is still much less
per megabyte than any board based on 256 kbit chips.  This number is also
within a factor of 2 or 3 of the per megabyte cost of small hard disks.
The same company will also be making a 16 Mb board which looks like a hard
disk (even plugs in to your current controller), but one with a 10
microsecond "track-to-track" access time.

I hereby predict that fixed hard disks will be obsolete within a year.

					Steve Walton
					Caltech Solar Astronomy
					swalton@caltech.bitnet
					walton%deimos@hamlet.cit.edu