From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Jul 31 20:23:47 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id UAA21639 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 20:23:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us (duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us [207.160.214.9]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA21634 for ; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 20:23:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us) Received: from duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us (cdillon@duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us [207.160.214.9]) by duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id WAA05543; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 22:23:34 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 22:23:33 -0500 (CDT) From: Chris Dillon X-Sender: cdillon@duey.hs.wolves.k12.mo.us To: Calvin M Meloon cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: This changes everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, 31 Jul 1998, Calvin M Meloon wrote: > On Fri, 31 Jul 1998, Johann Visagie wrote: > > On Fri, 31 Jul 1998 at 17:03 SAT, Peter Dufault wrote: > > > > I'm reevaluating the relevance factor of my current work in > > > > filesystems in light of the following earthshattering news: > > > > http://www.accpc.com/tcapstore.htm > > > > > > Ummmmmm. Reading the copy from this website makes me think of UFOs, > > > Area 51 and the Return Of Elvis though. One would think that if it > > My knowledge of capacitors isn't the greatest, but wouldn't you be > seriously screwed if the 'trans'-capacitor lost its charge? Yes, you would. The DRAM you (we, I, everyone) are using in our systems is capacitor based. It must be refreshed many times per second as the capacitors lose their charge _very_ quickly. SRAM (Static RAM, very expensive, commonly used in our PC processor caches and main memory of supercomputers) is transistor based and each cell holds its state indefinately until explicitly changed or power is lost. I've got a good enough electrical and general technical background to know that this is nothing but technically-clued-marketroid generated geek-speek, much like you'd find in Star Trek (actually better than what you find in Star Trek sometimes... Erm... Put down that crowbar.. I like Star Trek!). Some of it just sounds too technically phony to be for real. I DO, however, believe these types of "memories" will be "available" in the "forseeable future", so "plan" for them. (Had the excessive use of quotes in that page annoyed anyone else but me? See fortune -m "quotation marks around random words") Oh, don't you like this line, too? * Atapi IDE and SCSI ESDI Storage Protocols are licensed from Adaptec Corporation. Now, since when did Adaptec own the ATAPI or SCSI protocols, and whats this SCSI ESDI junk? :-) -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net /* FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet. For Intel x86 and compatibles (SPARC and Alpha under development) (http://www.freebsd.org) */ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message