wald-david@CS.YALE.EDU (david wald) (10/25/88)
(Especially considering the nature of this posting, I apologize if
anyone gets this more than once. As if there weren't already enough
postings about a vaporware machine.)
We seem to have a naming problem. Specifically, what is going to be the
casual name for the NeXT machine's optical media?
Thus far we have:
1) magneto-optical drive, and other official or semi-official terms.
These have the difficulty of being too long and technical for
casual use, as demonstrated by the creation of:
2) optifloppy,
which has the advantage of being a single word; and
3) floptical drive,
which preserves the meter of the original terms. The only problem
with this term is that the obvious shortening, "flopty," may be
a bit too close to the word "floppy" for easy use in conversation
(either in print or speech).
So what's it going to be? Option 1? Option 2? Option 3? Flames for
frivolity? I'll summarize whatever winds up in my mail (on this issue,
that is).
Oh my. An entire wall of flames.
============================================================================
David Wald wald-david@yale.UUCP
waldave@yalevm.bitnet
============================================================================bbc@titan.rice.edu (Benjamin Chase) (10/26/88)
In article <41210@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> wald-david@CS.YALE.EDU (david wald) writes: >We seem to have a naming problem. Specifically, what is going to be the >casual name for the NeXT machine's optical media? > 1) magneto-optical drive, and other official or semi-official terms. > 2) optifloppy, > 3) floptical drive, I really don't understand what all you people think is floppy about the storage media for the NeXT, or your CD player, etc. Also, I don't understand why you'd call a disc a drive. Moving right along, I think "1)" above is a fine choice if you're into acronyms, since then the name becomes "MOD". Of course, going with the acronym reintroduces the confusion between MODisc and MODrive, with which we seem to have problems :-). Also, consider 4) optidisc 5) opti 6) opticard The motivation behind 6) is that the actual disc is enclosed in a rectangular box. To the user, it may look very unlike a disc, especially if the box normally shields the disc from view. Anyone who has handled one care to comment? Certainly, other good choices exist. Let's hurry up and find a good name for this thing before someone gives it name like "Compact Disc", which gets shortened to something like CD, which sounds a lot like something you might get at a bank if the interest rates were good. Barring better names, my personal favorite is 4). If you have any other names, or useful comments about the suggestions made, _I_ certainly won't stop you from posting. If you have any votes, I'll be happy to tabulate them. My mailbox has been _so_ empty lately... Try and keep this list a little cleaner, though. On a related note, for people who have read this far, I hear that a 60Mbyte chunk of the disc is read-only, or is readable faster than the rest via a special read-only head, or some such rot. I suppose the intent is that certain seldom-written things such as the OS and the reference library might live in this region of the disc. This scuttlebutt comes from a regional sales rep who talked at Rice last week. Anyone who _knows_ about this care to post a concise and factual summary? Ben Chase bbc@rice.edu Computer Science Dept. Ben Chase bbc@rice.edu Computer Science Dept.
swilson%thetone@Sun.COM (Scott Wilson) (10/26/88)
In article <41210@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> wald-david@CS.YALE.EDU (david wald) writes: >We seem to have a naming problem. Specifically, what is going to be the >casual name for the NeXT machine's optical media? > >Thus far we have: > 1) magneto-optical drive ... > 2) optifloppy ... > 3) floptical drive ... Since the drive seems (at least to the uninitiated) to derive aspects from both magnetic and optical technology I suggest we call it the "Hybrid Of Magnetics and Optics" or HOMO for short. Wouldn't you just love to walk into the campus bookstore and say "I'll take the NeXT cube and a spare homo drive to go please." Ah, fun for all ages. (Liberally apply :-) to all the above, I don't need the grief.) -- Scott Wilson arpa: swilson@sun.com Sun Microsystems uucp: ...!sun!swilson Mt. View, CA
rwhite@nusdhub.UUCP (Robert C. White Jr.) (10/26/88)
in article <41210@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>, wald-david@CS.YALE.EDU (david wald) says: > > We seem to have a naming problem. Specifically, what is going to be the > casual name for the NeXT machine's optical media? I vote for the term "WALDO" for the new magneto-optical device technology. The word is an anagram (I think that's what them 'versity types don call them thin's an'way ;-) for the description of the technology. W.A.L.D.O. ==> Write-After-Landing-Delay Optics or Write-After-Long-Delay-Only (;-) for the sarcastic. Warm Areas Loose Data Often, (I'll bet that Direct sunlight will heat the media as well as the laser ever could) and the phrase "data disruption due to overheating" will have a totally new scope. How do I keep my data safe? I use ice. ;-) Rob.
shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) (10/26/88)
In article <41210@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> wald-david@CS.YALE.EDU (david wald) writes: > 3) floptical drive, > which preserves the meter of the original terms. The only problem > with this term is that the obvious shortening, "flopty," may be > a bit too close to the word "floppy" for easy use in conversation > (either in print or speech). > I can't resist. I propose, on the logic of progressive technologies having logically sequential names, that we should use: mopties as in Flopties, Mopties, Peepers, and Floptentails. It's been a long night.
zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jacob Ben-david Zimmerman) (10/26/88)
Ben- Magneto-optical drive? Sounds like something out of Trek...also, a 3.5 disk is in a square thingy too, and looks as much like a disk as the optical thingummy (I presume...never seen one.) But how about calling it an optimag disk? or even lasermag...or opnetic...or magtical...or even such things as WMRM!(write many..) or CMCD! (Computer Media Compact Disk) or CD-MMS (CD Mass media storage!) or any number of other things... :-)! How about WARM? Write And Read Many? or COLD? Computer Optical Laser Disk? or NODS? Next Optical Data Storage? Or NUTS, for NeXT's Unusual Type of Storage! or JOKE-Jobs' Optical Kilobyte Engine, or more...flames to dev/null, please. Not to offend any NeXT worshippers, I just love inserting a little humor anywhere I can! JBZimmerman! -- ___________ | "A flute with no holes is not a flute. A donut || | with no holes is a danish." || ||acob Zimmerman!+> <zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> INTERNET === | <zimerman@PUCC> BITnet
tbrakitz@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Triantaphyllos Byron Rakitzis) (10/26/88)
In article <4124@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jacob Ben-david Zimmerman) writes: >Ben- > Magneto-optical drive? Sounds like something out of Trek...also, a 3.5 >disk is in a square thingy too, and looks as much like a disk as the >optical thingummy (I presume...never seen one.) But how about calling it >an optimag disk? or even lasermag...or opnetic...or magtical...or even >such things as WMRM!(write many..) or CMCD! (Computer Media Compact >Disk) or CD-MMS (CD Mass media storage!) or any number of other >things... :-)! How about WARM? Write And Read Many? or COLD? Computer >Optical Laser Disk? or NODS? Next Optical Data Storage? Or NUTS, for >NeXT's Unusual Type of Storage! or JOKE-Jobs' Optical Kilobyte Engine, >or more...flames to dev/null, please. Not to offend any NeXT >worshippers, I just love inserting a little humor anywhere I can! > JBZimmerman! > >|| ||acob Zimmerman!+> <zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> INTERNET Hey, JBZ, I think you missed the next most obvious definition: the recursive one! DUD: Damn Useless DUD. Byron Rakitzis. tbrakitz@phoenix.princeton.edu
werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (10/27/88)
magneto-optical floppy ..moptical ....myoptical .......my optical ..........where the hell is MY moptical floppy on which sits all the the software I shelled out money to get the password for so that I can work on that machine over at that workstation with the sign: "IN THE SHOP" !!! -- --------------------> PREFERED-RETURN-ADDRESS-FOLLOWS <--------------------- (ARPA) werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet: 128.83.144.1) (INTERNET) werner%rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.utexas.edu (UUCP) ..!utastro!werner or ..!uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!werner
Lou@cup.portal.com (William Joseph Marriott) (10/28/88)
My vote goes for optidisk. It's easy to type, easy to say, and represents a meeting of two technologies: the new, laser-based nature of the optidrive, and the proud heritage of disks, which even though it comes in a square box, it's still a disk (and who cares if it's really disc with a c). Folks will wanna call anything that holds data that isn't a tape a disk, so let's keep the disk part. Optidisk and Optidrive. For a better America. ____ "I knew Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a friend of mine. You're no Steve Jobs, Mr. Gates." ___
pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel) (10/29/88)
Lou@cup.portal.com (William Joseph Marriott) writes: >Optidisk and Optidrive. For a better America. (Are we tired of this yet ?-) * Opticart (Optical-cartridge) * Mocart ("mho-cart": Magnetic-Optical cartridge) * Modisk, Modrive ;-D oN ( MoToWN ) Pardo -- pardo@cs.washington.edu {rutgers,cornell,ucsd,ubc-cs,tektronix}!uw-beaver!june!pardo