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IBM Reinvents Punch Cards
grim_thing writes "I.B.M. scientists say they have created a data-storage technology that can store the equivalent of 200 CD-ROM's on a surface the size of a postage stamp. Writing in the current issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, researchers at I.B.M.'s laboratories in Zurich report that they have achieved a storage density of one trillion bits of data per square inch, about 25 times as great as current hard disks." Reuters also has a story.
What if one's data contains dimpled chads? How will those bits be counted?
You are not the customer.
So, is the data stored in blocks of 25 rows of 80 columns? This will be handy for FORTH systems without file systems, and FORTRAN IV,66 and 77 programmers.
Stick Men
Can we get that translated into a tandard measurement, like Library's of Congress?
His holes are 10 nanometers ... and about 3 billion of them fit in a punch card hole
I read the news today, oh boy
4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancastershire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I'd love to turn you on
I'd hate to drop a deck of punch cards that size. You'd need a microscope to put them back in order.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
1984: Wow! Twenty megabytes! I'll never use all this space! ... Ah, screw it.
1988: Wow! Eighty megabytes! I'll never use all this space!
1994: Wow! A gigabyte! I'll never use all this space!
1999: Uh, wow. Twenty gigabytes? I don't think I'll ever use all this space.
2002: A hundred and twenty gigs? I... hm.
2005:
Wait. Nevermind.
Somebody's been playing waaay too much Starcraft. The only way of generating an EMP Blast of any appreciable size or strength carries with it some other pesky side effects, as well. That, and if such an EMP blast is ever generated, well, it'll take us a while to lament the loss of long-term digital archives...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Unless of course you loo[sic]se it.
This reminds me of a revelation I had a few years ago, after getting my first CD-ROM drive. I'd manage to misplace a CD containing a multimedia encyclopedia and eventually found it sitting on the floor under my desk. I realised then that never before in human history had it been possible to lose an entire 28 volume encyclopedia by dropping it behind a piece of furniture. Now that's what I call progress!
"Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
. . . about 25 times as great as current hard disks.
All right, so how much denser is it than punch cards?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.