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From: kay@warwick.UUCP (Kay Dekker)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: electrons as a bound on memory size (was VLMM, crypt)
Message-ID: <446@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Sep-86 18:24:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubu.446
Posted: Fri Sep 26 18:24:18 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Oct-86 21:15:38 EDT
References: <15505@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <5100124@ccvaxa> <972@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <505@gvax.cs.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: kay@warwick.UUCP (Kay Dekker)
Organization: Computer Science, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 20

In article <505@gvax.cs.cornell.edu>
	jqj@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (J Q Johnson) writes:

>Going one step further out, why use matter to encode data at all?   If you 
>want bulk sequential storage, simply modulate an EM wave directed at a
>distant point (that destination might be a reflector of some kind if you
>know you will want to retrieve your data at the same location you generated
>it).  Result:  effectively infinite bulk storage at the cost of a finite
>and small number of electrons.  Granted it's not random access, but neither
>are lots of existing technologies.

I seem to remember that this idea has already been proposed; read
_His_Master's_Voice_, by Stanislaw Lem.  This contains probably the
most outrageous (and *universal*) method of data storage I've ever seen...

							Kay.

-- 
"Jung'f n tbbq ohqql?  V'yy gryy lbh - n tbbq ohqql tbrf vagb gbja, trgf
 n pbhcyr bs oybjwbof, gura pbzrf onpx naq tvirf lbh bar."