gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (10/21/88)
Rough figuring leads me to think that if a 50-minute CD can hold about 600MB,
and the NeXT oppy disk holds 250MB, then it probably holds about 20 minutes
of similar-quality sound. At $50, not a bargain for copying CD's. On
the other hand, it could be quite nice for studio recording of individual
cuts (if somebody made a high quality audio input board, and digital
audio editing software).
Many people have thought of moving wide bandwidth data through commercial
cable TV systems. The problem is that they are franchised monopolies, with
little incentive to innovate. I have friends who used to be a cable-TV
startup that had full end-to-end data traffic (in fact, there were about
3 micros per house -- one on the pole, one in the tuner, another in the
remote control/keyboard). One problem was finding cable TV development
companies that were interested in supplying such a system, when a dumb,
cheap, well understood system would satisfy a city council that didn't
know what it was missing.
Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a coat pocket containing a 250MB oppy disk!
--
John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com
Noriega-Bush in '88 -- a *crack* team.
Let's put the white powder (CIA = Cocaine Import Agency) in the white house!