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From: lyang%scherzo@Sun.COM (Larry Yang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.arch
Subject: Re: NeXT press release (very long but interesting)
Message-ID: <73226@sun.uucp>
Date: 17 Oct 88 18:21:44 GMT
References: <5423@juniper.uucp> <72886@sun.uucp> <635@ardent.UUCP> <73003@sun.uucp> <9480@pur-ee.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: lyang@sun.UUCP (Larry Yang)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 23

In article <9480@pur-ee.UUCP> hankd@pur-ee.UUCP (Hank Dietz) writes:
>Certainly, it is possible to make a randomly read/write/modify optical disk;
>isn't that what Tandy did just a short while ago?  The things that bug me are:
>
>(1)	Less than 300M of storage...  that's less than an audio CD.  Does this
>	imply that the format is some brand new magic thing that nobody else
>	will be using?
An audio CD has as its "format" basically one, long serial spiral
(not unlike its vinyl counterpart).  In computer applications, I believe
the disks are usually formatted into wedges (sectors), not unlike its
magnetic counterpart.  Thus, along with the ECC overhead, there is the
overhead for formating the sectors, labeling the sectors, etc.

But wait... is the disk the same physical size as the audio CD?

>(2)	$50 each?  It should be more like $15 each....  I wonder why it isn't?

My guess is that the price will come down with time.

--Larry Yang [lyang@sun.com,{backbone}!sun!lyang]|   A REAL _|> /\ |  _   _   _ 
  Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA      | signature |   | | / \ | \ / \
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