ChemE Stewart <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Right, we also used to have the Stanley Steamer and vacuum tube > technology and they were REPLACED with better technology > Better? Are you sure? Vacuum tube computer memory replaced CRT-based memory. Vacuum tubes were then replaced by magnetic core memory, which was replaced by semiconductor memory. But wait, magnetic core may be staging a comeback. It might replace semiconductor RAM again. As I said, the old is often made new again. Charles Spindt of SRI told me that ideas proposed by Ken Shoulders and Don Geppert's on integrated micron-sized "vacuum tubes" (Vacuum Microelectronics) had been pursued, maybe we would be using vacuum tube RAM today. People are now working on DNA based data storage systems. It does not seem likely to me these will ever be used for RAM memory, but you never know. If they are, all the world's data would fit in 8 mL of fluid costing a fraction of a penny. DNA is old technology. Very old. 3.5 billion years old. The DNA data transfer speed occurring in your body at this moment far exceeds the speed of all computers on earth. Electric cars were made obsolete in 1908 by the introduction of the Model T Ford. Today, gasoline cars are being may obsolete by the introduction of . . . electric cars, hybrid and pure. It may be that solar thermal lost its chance. It may never compete with PV or wind. Then again, maybe it will. I hope that all of them are soon replaced by cold fusion. - Jed
