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Video of ceramic storage system prototype surfaces online — 10,000TB cartridges bombarded with laser rays could become mainstream by 2030, making slow hard drives and tapes obsolete | TechRadar (www.techradar.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Those totally look like the isolinear chips from Star Trek

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Data is written by two million laser beamlets that punch QR code-like nano-scale patterns into the surface of the media. The laser pulse is sharpened by a digital micromirror device, and shaped by microscope optics onto the surface of the data carrier. This process imprints holes – or no holes – onto the surface layer, which represents binary information.

It’s futuristic punchcards. We’ve come full circle.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It’s futuristic punchcards.

always was.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Pretty much, yeah! CDs and blu-rays aren’t all that different from punch cards, as the data is literally stored as indentations on the disc with a reflective layer. Arguably CD-RWs are kind of different as they change the reflectivity of a material itself… Hard drives and floppies are maaaaybe slightly different too because they use changes in magnetism instead of physical indentations too. You could probably argue that flash and DRAM aren’t glorified punchcards? But I mean, ultimately all data is stored in a physical medium somehow so it’s always going to have some resemblance!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Tapes and spinning disks were futuristic magnetized wire.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Or even eched tablets, we've double backed on the full circle.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

"Alright class, pull out your chisel and slate.."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Sounds like it would be difficult to rewrite/edit the data?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

A punchcard is two dimensional. Actually you can have multiple dimensions on a punch card, the positions of the card can store different data and you can determine what that is by the position of holes on another part of the card.

Whereas a paper tape, or a magnetic tape is serial and has only one dimension (you can divide the tape into different bands though).