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.

Comments

Re:good news for Linux?

[Indras]

Actually, I only use two CDs to install Red Hat, not six. Sure, the professional version comes with six, but that is all the software you'll need to run any type of server you could want. Tons of text editors, multiple browsers, image editors (gimp, etc), office suites (staroffice), and lots and lots more, as well as source code for pretty much everything.

I don't know of any version of Windows that fits all of those utilities on one CD, or even six for that matter. You'll need CDs for Windows, MS Office (full version is four CDs by itself), a paint program like Photoshop (another CD), MS Exchange for e-mail, and so on and so forth.

Frankly, I think your comment is a bunch of FUD, especially when there are entire versions of Linux out there now that come on just one DVD-ROM. Pretty much every distro comes with a graphical installer, a text-based one, and options for FTP installs. And, you don't need a special version to do an "upgrade install" on an existing system, if you don't want to rewrite all your files with a "full install" (Microsoft likes to charge more for these features). It doesn't get more convenient than that.