johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) (08/19/87)
In article <12357@amdahl.amdahl.com> chuck@amdahl.amdahl.com (Charles Simmons) writes: > >How about an optical disk with a laser driven by a phased array (as >in phased array radar)? >(Is there such a thing as a phased array laser?) Or maybe some other >storage medium accessed by a phased array? Such a creature would have >no moving parts. A lot of the research involving advanced optics (phased array, synthetic aperture, etc.) gets classified by DoD. It applies to spy satellites and such. Apparently, scaling the tricks used for microwaves to the visable spectrum is quite hard. Also, I recall a SPIE proceedings from around 1983-4 focussing on Mass Storage. One paper in particular was quite interesting. It was called 'A 100,000 Gigabyte online storage system,' or something to that effect. ^^^^ What was impressive (in addition to the capacity of the thing) was that the access time was on the order of 1-2 nanoseconds! ^^^^ Does anybody have the exact reference or info as to what has been happening with it during the past 4 years? John Gregor johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@germany.CSNET [no great .signature yet, but all the usual disclaimers.]