19 Dec
2009
19 Dec
'09
1 p.m.
On 19 Dec 2009 at 14:12, Tim Shoppa wrote:
Rather than try to decide on the "one right
way" to do things
going into the future, don't all of us in fact end up diversifying
into what's available now and then shifting up to new interfaces over
time as they become proven?
That's nice in theory. But what about as an upgrade to a 30-year old
piece of industrial gear that expects to see at least another 20
years of useful life? Will your upgrade use a medium that will be
available for the next 20 years, when even USB will only be a memory
to hard-core collectors?
What's most astonishing: what used to fit on
10,000 9-track tapes,
literally filling an entire moving truck, now comfortably fits on a 1
terabyte portable hard drive that is just a little bigger than pocket
sized. That's mind-blowing
Yes, and the newest SD cards have a maximum capacity of 2TB--and I
have no doubt that even that will be extended in the future.
What we no longer have is convenient inexpensive storage for modest
amounts of information, say a megabyte or two? Ideally, such a
medium would be read-mostly or write-once and a handful of them would
buy a cup of coffee at your local watering hole.
If I want to write a quick note, I don't need a printer's bale or
even a quire.
--Chuck