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Scotch Tape Storage
Hoss Man writes "It seems like a few techno-heads out there have figured out how to make a 10Gig harddrive out of a roll of Scotch Tape. It would be cooler if it was Duct Tape, but I guess we can't really complain. " Alright, I'm not sure whether I believe it or not, but it looks pretty darn cool.
All joking aside, this, in my opinion, is a classic breakthrough in which a 'silly' idea or thought-experiment leads to a minor or perhaps major revolution. The idea of wide, rolled surface for data storage is phenominal. The amount of surface area is MUCH larger than that of a cd-rom or any other flat spining surface, and the amount of movement necessary for a given read is greatly lessened. The idea of three dimensional storage is a tad beyond me, but I can see the potential and it's very exciting.
Before you laugh this off as funny ("it's tape! Huh huh! That's stoopid!") read the page and check out what they're doing. This is big stuff!
With some very sticky implications...
DOH!
**>>BELCH
That ought to fix things right up!
One hermetically sealed clean room.. $750,000
One pen laser $20
One roll of Scotch Tape $3
One more way to piss of the MPAA Priceless
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
This story has been doing the rounds for a couple of months allready. Though it is a theoretical possibillity to store data on Scotch tape, it would not be of alot of practical use. There was an Ask Slashdot on Data Obsolescence and Media Decay. Well, Scotch tape would definitely run large risks of media decay. I also wonder if it would be ROM or if it would be rewritable and how often it would be rewritable.
(RANT>The problem with these stories is that many people read them and don't see that it is only a scientist goofing around. It is amazing to see here on Slashdot the reaction research results. People assume that because it has been done in a lab it is therefore possible to do it anytime, any place, anywhere. Fact is, you can't. Most inventions are only proof of concept and need alot of work before they can be used by you or me. Now next time you see a cool invention, understand that it takes at least 2 to 3 years t end up on your desktop.
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...Unable to mount volume "3M", couldn't find damn beginning of roll...
These comments and opinions are mine and mine alone, although they shouldn't be.
You'd be faced with a dilema, fix the printer and lose your 3rd backup of Win95.
Have a paper clip, I need it to make a helicopter.
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Drive "3M" is not ready: Abort, retry, Unroll? Can't access drive; Unable to find beginning of roll! Don't become unglued! Invalid media, insert single-sided tape only! And the number one user complaint of the future: "I inserted double-sided tape, and it stuck! I thought I could get twice the storage..."
This