Is holographic no longer vaporware?

[Doc Shipley]

Fred Cisin wrote:

> On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Stan Barr wrote:
> 
>>>BTW what happed to holographic storage anyhow?
>>
>>Work is still in progress.  Shizuka University in Japan recently demoed
>>a device that stores 2000 gigabytes of data in a 1cm cube of material.
>>Reading and writing the data is still too slow for a practical device
>>though.   You could archive a *lot* of data with one!
> 
> 
> Not necessarily doubting, but was that "stores", or "can store"?
> Many years ago, I attended a presentation about a holographic
> system the "could store" MANY gigabytes per cc.  The phrase
> "can store" was used a lot. When asked about current progress,
> they were VERY evasive.  After about a dozen questions, they
> admitted that they had not yet achieved the multi-gigabyte
> capacity.  After many more questions, they finally admitted
> that the current capacity was 27 bits.  It is a good proof of
> concept, but the differentiation between projection and
> accomplishment is significant.
> 'course by now, they very well might have reached the
> capacity goals.
> 
> 
> Similarly there is a proponent of alternate fuel vehicles who
> is constantly quoting specs that include impressive results.
> He is very evasive about timeframe of availability.
> But it turns out that his vehicle is NOT in production.
> There isn't even a prototype!  His "data" is all results
> of "simulations", and many of his "can do" numbers require
> a complete restructure of society.  Even when explicity
> challenged, he adamently refuses to acknowledge a difference
> between possibilities and existence.

   A lot of theorists can't tell that there *is* a difference.

   I worked with a guy like that at UT.  I always wanted to invite him 
to dinner, and present him with a 20-minute discourse on how I could 
prepare his meal.


	Doc