optical memories - electronic filing cabinets

optical memories elektor april 1984 At the right a floppy disc drive unit. At the left the optical memory drive unit OPTIMEN developed by Shugart, which was un- veiled in prototype form in the USA towards the end of 1983. Anticipated cost of production mo- dels (if they appear in the next 12 months): about $6000! optical memories electronic filing cabinets Beethoven"s Fifth and Schubert"s Unfinished are nowadays available on compact disc, the optical audio-memory. It is a curious fact that the compact disc has appeared so much earlier than optical memories for computers, although not so long ago the latter were expected to be first on the market. But here we are today with the compact audio disc reasonably well established but with no indication as to when optical computer memories will appear on the market. Even the most optimistic prognoses from the industry contain no hints whatsoever, although there have been murmurs that a read-only optical memory may appear on the American m...