Newsgroups: comp.databases,comp.lsi,comp.parallel.pvm,comp.parallel.mpi,comp.org.acm,comp.org.ieee,comp.protocols.misc,comp.realtime,comp.arch,comp.software-eng,comp.sys.super,comp.theory,comp.dsp,sci.math
From: John Turner <turner@branagh.lanl.gov>
Subject: Re: Publishing Scholarly Work on the Web -- opinions?
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: 06 Oct 1996 22:17:17 -0600
Message-ID: <hrd8yvv25u.fsf@branagh.lanl.gov>

ecale@cray.com (David Ecale) writes:

> (PS.  The only media that I know about that has survived
> 1000s of years is stone (the Rosetta Stone is an example) and clay (baked
> in the case of Babylonian Cuniform and unbaked in the case of Minoan
> Linear B).

There's a startup company called Norsam Technologies that's licensing 
LANL-developed technology using etching for storage.  I think they even
call it Rosetta.  Here are a few articles:

http://www.imation.com/main/prodfams/dsp/info/jan22.html
http://stb.lanl.gov/LDRD/highlights/95dec.html
http://www.lanl.gov:8010/LANLNews/.ArchivedPressReleases/0626HDROMTopsCDROM
http://www.norsam.com/

The last doesn't have much there yet.

An interesting aspect of this format is that they can store data in
analog, digital, or both, on the same media.

They claim 180x today's CD-ROMs, which means ~120 GB, though at these
densities you basically need an electron microscope to read the things.
I think they have a range of densities, though, one of which is something
like 22 GB on a 5" disk, for which readers are expected to be available
for something like $1-2k (initially).

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| John A. Turner                                                |
| Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS B226, Los Alamos, NM 87545 |
| Group: XTM (Radiation Transport Methods)                      |
| Location: TA-3, Bldg. 43, Rm. D150                            |
| Phone: 505-665-1303                   e-mail: turner@lanl.gov |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+

P.S. I'm not an investor in Norsam, though I've considered it.

