Is it a fantasy?
Comment from E-mail
Dear Woz, Hello. It’s a wonderful thing that you allow yourself to be so accesable. I found your site as well as your comments to exhibit a great sense of humor. I should know, since I work in a comedy club! Let me cut to the chase… My grandfather was Sam Lang. He and Robert Howard (of Howtek) founded the Centronics Data Corp. in 1968, and together they invented the dot-matrix printer, and parallel port. Why am I boring you with this? Here’s why: When my grandfather died, he left me a schematic diagram and 10 page description for a device he called the “digital cache”. It appears to be a tape drive like an Iomega Ditto drive, but according to his documents, with a 3 million Gigabyte capacity. It’s intended purpose was for video archiving. I don’t believe an item with that high a capacity in a small size has yet been invented, so it’s possible that this may be something. Unfortunately, I know very little about this stuff, so I can’t tell if it’s a great thing, a 10 year old thing, or a fantasy. And I’m afraid to show anyone else, because if it’s a real thing, who could I trust. Only you perhaps, which is why I am writing. Please respond and let me know how I can fax or mail you these documents. Thanks for your time.
Woz
It sounds like a good idea. The need for video archiving is fast approaching. I recently cut back my own HD size and I had to toss a lot of videos that I always liked to play to entertain others and myself. One day I was wondering where all the camera and data and video media types wind up. A friend replied, instantly, “RAM.” He indicated that we might someday have a RAM card the size of a stamp or something with enough capacity to hold hundreds of videos. Then what does it all mean? Where does life head when this is possible? I wish I could be here when it’s reached, but it’s a long way off.