A bit of history. I invented the solid-state disk concept in 1970 and licensed it to Monolithic Systems, which marketed it as the "EMU" Extended Memory Unit.
We expected the performance (on a PDP-11 Unibus) to be 17,000 times faster than the RF/RS-11 fixed head disk it replaced. Based on 17 millisecond rotational latency for the rotating hard drive vs. the 1 microsecond RAM memory.
Well, it didn't work that way. Turns out the DEC device driver sucked up a LOT of time and, while performance was markedly increased, it wasn't 17,000 times.
Best application was on a submarine, where the rotational latency didn't matter --- but the rotational latency DID!
Rob Lake
Slashdot Mirror
A bit of history. I invented the solid-state disk concept in 1970 and licensed it to Monolithic Systems, which marketed it as the "EMU" Extended Memory Unit. We expected the performance (on a PDP-11 Unibus) to be 17,000 times faster than the RF/RS-11 fixed head disk it replaced. Based on 17 millisecond rotational latency for the rotating hard drive vs. the 1 microsecond RAM memory. Well, it didn't work that way. Turns out the DEC device driver sucked up a LOT of time and, while performance was markedly increased, it wasn't 17,000 times. Best application was on a submarine, where the rotational latency didn't matter --- but the rotational latency DID! Rob Lake