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From: bob@imsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: new floppies / words of Roy Bean regarding PS2s
Message-ID: <769@imsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Sep-87 23:16:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: imsvax.769
Posted: Thu Sep 24 23:16:30 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 16:32:25 EDT
Organization: IMS Inc., Rockville, MD
Lines: 33
Keywords: Kodak, sheep-stealing

Aside from the 800x600 graphics boards which are now showing up for $200-
$300 in Computer-Shopper ads, obviously intended to work with the NEC 
Multisync, there is another new piece of technology hitting the market about
now which represents a revolutionary capability.  Kodak is marketing a new kind 
of floppy technology, with the mid-priced product, a 6 meg floppy, being sold
by most dealers for around $350, the controller board for about $130.  Boxes
of the 6 meg floppies are going for about $100 (5/box), and will come down as
sales increase.  Disk speeds are comparable to a slow hard disk.  This is 
essentially cheap and limitless storage; major software systems along with 
data files could be kept on such floppies, simplifying organization tremendous-
ly.  And, unlike the Bernoulli Box, the prices seem believeable and in line
with the realities of micro usage.

As usual, the only people left out of all this will be PS2 owners.  When I
think of the myriad ways in which PS2s will lock their owners into yesterday
and out of the bright future I see evolving in micro systems, I am reminded
of the famous words of Judge Roy Bean, spoken to a Mexican who had been
apprehended stealing a sheep.  As best I can recollect, the sentence which
the judge pronounced went as follows:

      "Time shall pass;  the seasons shall come and go.  Spring with it's
      waving green grass and flowers, and the sultry summer, and Autumn with
      it's myriads of colors, and Winter, when all the land lies blanketed 
      in snow....  But you won't be here to see any of those things, cause
      it's the order of this court that you be took to the nearest tree, 
      and hanged by the neck until you're DEAD, you foul-smellin, chille-eatin,
      sheep-stealin son of a bitch!"


Ted Holden
HT Enterprises