Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!BU-CS.BU.EDU!bzs
From: bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: CD ROMs
Message-ID: <8802010439.AA05904@bu-cs.bu.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 88 04:39:11 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 22


[Some will get this twice, sorry, there was a mailing list problem
 and this seemed a more interesting test message for those who missed
 the first one -B]

A colleague here argues that CD ROM's and WORMs have lost a lot of
their conceptual glamor. He says that when they were announced they
seemed fantastic but now that 1GB 5 1/4" winchester disk drives are
appearing at reasonable prices most of the applications he originally
thought the CD's would be important for don't seem very important
anymore, he'd just as soon buy winchesters.

The argument isn't that they're useless, just that a lot of
applications (eg. storing a lot of on-line source code, image data or
archival data bases like dictionaries or the library) seems a lot less
appealing, particularly given the trade-offs (such as mounting the
media when someone wants it, immutability, lack of re-usability,
difficulty of CD ROM publishing for small projects and (as of now)
lack of speed. The context has changed.

Thoughts?

	-Barry Shein, Boston University