A Billion Bytes ... In A Box A Micron wide

I got my 1st Philips Audio Tape Recorder in 1961. & In 1961, I have my 1st Philips Transistor Radio. But both were destroyed by my gyougest brother.

I have witness the change of the Technology from

Electrical
Electronics Vacuum Tube
Electronics Transistor's
Transistor Logics
Integrated Circuits
Highly Integrated Circuits
Programmable Logic Arrays
Microprocessors
Multi-Microprocessors

And now the Nano-Technology....

I can see that perhaps after I am gone the Pico-Technology would be taking over the Nano-Tech era.

Now looking back those Electric-Mechanical base Data Storage Tapes.. then it was bigger then double the size of shoe box.

The Nano-Technology Mechanical Data Storage would at least billions times faster than the present electronic memory as well.

A Billion Bytes ... In A Box A Micron Wide* ... If two different side groups on a polyethylene-like polymer are used to represent the ones and zeros of binary code, then the polymer can serve as a data storage tape.

If one were to use, say, fluorine and hydrogen as the two side groups, and to allow considerable room for tape reading, writing, and handling mechanisms, then a half cubic micron would store about a billion bytes.

Access times can be kept in the microsecond range because the tapes can be made very short.

A mechanical random-access memory scheme allows storage of only about 10 million bytes in the same volume, though this can probably be bettered.

For a more detailed discussion, see "Molecular Machinery and Molecular Electronic Devices," by K. Eric Drexler, in Molecular Electronic Devices II, edited by Forrest L. Carter (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1986).

Engines of Creation - K. Eric Drexler : References