FreeLists / 24hoursupport / [24hoursupport] Re: The Myth Of The 100-Year CD-Rom

[chizotz@xxxxxxxxx]

Dale,

The glorified a:\ drive you saw was probably a hybrid floppy drive. For a 
short while, there were disks and drives available that had both optical and  
magnetic storage. The optical part, if I recall, was WORM (Write Once Read 
Many), like current CD-R technology. The magnetic part was just like floppy 
drive technology. The idea was basically that you could store some 
data "permanently" and unalterably on the disk, while maintaining the 
flexibility of also having storage on the disk that could be altered at will. 
I may be incorrect in some particulars, I'm going by memory from many years 
ago. As I recall, those drives were never very popular because while they 
attempted to combine the best of both worlds they really ended up combining 
the worst of both worlds, and the drives and disks were expensive to boot.

As far as "disc" v. "disk", the correct spelling is disk. Technically there is 
no word "disc", it isn't a part of the English language. Spelling it with a c 
instead of a k was basically just a way of setting computer "discs" apart from 
other disks.

The original question about "optical disks" v. CD technology, I have no idea 
what is being referred to as "optical disks". Optical disks are CD and DVD as 
far as I know.

HTH,

Ron


>  
> In a message dated 2/8/2005 4:07:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
> 0e60wq102@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> The reason I asked what is an optical disk, is that I once saw what appeared 
> to be a glorified A: drive type diskette with some kind of optical feature to 
> it. This seems out of style now but it made me wonder whether it might be 
> what 
> was talked about.
>     The reason I was thinking that you were asking, because this question 
> also popped up in my mind, was that the site was talking about optical disc's 
> being better than cd's.  If cd's ARE optical discs, what the hell were they 
> talking about at the site?  How can optical disc's be better than cd's when 
> they're 
> the exact same thing?  "Don't use cd's anymore, use cd's!"
>     Now, I have another question, maybe not so dumb, what's the difference 
> between a disc and a disk?  All my life, disc has been spelled, "disc", now 
> they're sometime's being spelled, "disk", but we're still talking about a 
> flat 
> round thing.  Sure, the diskette isn't round, but the bit that the data gets 
> saved onto IS.  What's the difference?
>     By the way, that diskette is made of the same stuff as magnetic tape.  It 
> can easily be erased the same way tapes can: by storing them near electronic 
> devices, especially those that have magnetic parts inside of them.  Things 
> like, t.v.s, computer monitors, computers, vcr's, tape decks, radios, clocks, 
> speakers, and probably things like benders, microwave ovens, and other 
> electronic 
> kitchen or workshop items.  Too many times I've seen people store their loved 
> recordings on, or near, these electronic items.  Either they don't know, or 
> they don't care.
>  
>                             Dale
> 
> 
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