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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:37 am
by Counterparts
Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:45 am
by hubird
and how do you put the disk in that die?
Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:48 am
by Nestor
Real amazing...

:
Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:31 am
by bosone
are you sure that the dice is not 1 meter long?
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bosone on 2004-04-29 12:31 ]</font>
Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:58 am
by kensuguro
is this the stuff they use in iPod mini? damn it's small. I wonder when they'll start implanting HDs in: TV remotes, cellphones, PCI boards, books (??), DV cameras (quite logical), air hockey pucks, shoes, zippo lighters, zippo lighter fluid cans, coke cans (now there's an idea!)
Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:14 pm
by samplaire
You forgot about those fridge reminder-magnets
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-04-29 19:14 ]</font>
Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:51 pm
by astroman
which reminds me on those magnets the German Railway Corp used to lock small tables for the notebooks of their business travellors.
Powerful little metal beasts which were positioned right below the notebook when engaged, and happened to format more than one harddisk.
Never saw those table, but they were said to have a cool design - unlike the expression in the faces of their users...
cheers, Tom
Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:11 am
by Counterparts
kensuguro wrote:
I wonder when they'll start implanting HDs in: TV remotes, cellphones, PCI boards, books (??)...
Funny you should say books:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3568505.stm
Have you seen these for sale in Japan at all?
Royston
Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:56 pm
by samplaire
Powerful little metal beasts which were positioned right below the notebook when engaged, and happened to format more than one harddisk.
Never saw those table, but they were said to have a cool design - unlike the expression in the faces of their users...
FRIGHTENING!!!!!
Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 11:22 am
by braincell
I like flash memory more.
Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 5:35 pm
by astroman
as a hard disk replacement it is bloody slow and - unreliable (!), but it's silence is much appreciated
cheers, Tom
Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 11:24 pm
by braincell
And for battery life. Standard batteries are best. Check out the cost to replace an Ipod battery. Don't try this at home!
Posted: Tue May 04, 2004 12:25 am
by kensuguro
Yeah, I've seen that at the electronics store.. but it seems to be more or less a "hey, look what technology can do now" type of item. You know, gadgets that look really cool and are really advanced, but no one really uses. Kinda like the Sony Aibo (dog robot).. it's cool, and you see it all over the media, but I've never seen anyone that has it.
It's also kind of sad that Sony is the first one that made use of the digital paper technology, since it's going to be bogged down with the whole Sony proprietory technology lock down. Nothing is generic with Sony, it's always got to have some sort of secret trick in it that makes an item either work best with Sony equipment or software, or can be made to not work anymore when Sony stops supporting it.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2004-05-04 01:31 ]</font>
Posted: Tue May 04, 2004 9:56 am
by braincell
But then they give up like with the consumer beta.
It is a worry that they own entertainment companies and create hardware and in some cases try to prevent copying or "Piracy". I always thought pirates were people with an eye patch and a hook for a hand.
I read the biography of Akio Morita, the father of Sony. It's hilarious to read about him trying to hand paint iron oxide on audio tape! What a long way they came in one generation and Japan too. Very industrious people.
Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 3:23 am
by DigiSUN
On 2004-05-03 18:35, astroman wrote:
as a hard disk replacement it is bloody slow and - unreliable (!), but it's silence is much appreciated
cheers, Tom
Astroman, flash memory is unreliable??
Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 4:08 am
by astroman
don't panic - the emphasis is on
as a hard disk replacement 
I once used such a disk as a remedy for a noisy notebook.
While a full succes in dB, the thing produced lot of strange errors, all disk related in one or the other way, in monthly intervals.
That kind of flash disk is frequently used in embedded apps where something is booted into memory and a few values are stored, but doesn't really fit a desktop OS which constantly writes to the disk.
The memory cells do have a limited count of read/write cycles, so the firmware of this device (it was a 'real' HD replacement, not a memory card) had an internal 'remapper' that distributed access equally over the unit.
As a storage medium for images and sound the reliability of flash memory is magnitudes higher of course
cheers, Tom
Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 5:10 am
by DigiSUN
Oh...

Great elaboration. Thanks!
So it seems that there are reliablility problems for heavy random-access requirements. This still brings question about reliablity of flash memory as a storage device (not as a HD replacement)... I mean at some point problems will arise, won't they? How can we be assured that the flash memory cells' life hasn't come to their end?
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DigiSUN on 2004-05-07 06:32 ]</font>
Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 8:49 am
by Counterparts
Each address location of flash memory has a limited number of writes before it 'wears out'.
We use flash memory a lot in our company - e.g. for holding a unix kernel image. When you write to flash, there's a funky algorithm which 'spreads' the data across the device (actually changes where the data's written) to try to maximise the device's lifetime.
Eventually, it will fail. As do HDDs. As does anything which has a beginning
The world never began, hence it's eternal!
Royston