question of the day
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Nov 19, 2010 3:23 PM EDT |
Question of the day: why do we mock people who call hard drive storage "memory", but "flash memory" is acceptable? |
| Steven_Rosenber Nov 19, 2010 3:42 PM EDT |
So you think semantics should get in the way of a good mocking? I call it "non-volatile memory," so let the mocking begin. |
| Scott_Ruecker Nov 19, 2010 3:53 PM EDT |
For me its either 'disk storage' or solid state or 'flash' storage.. |
| jezuch Nov 19, 2010 3:57 PM EDT |
We should also start mocking people who call SSD's "disks". |
| gus3 Nov 19, 2010 4:00 PM EDT |
As I recall, hard drive storage can also serve as "virtual memory". |
| Steven_Rosenber Nov 19, 2010 5:17 PM EDT |
Can we all agree to use the term "bit bucket"? |
| mrider Nov 19, 2010 5:20 PM EDT |
If it's in teh big box, isn't it just a CPU? |
| hkwint Nov 19, 2010 5:25 PM EDT |
It's all speicher to me... |
| mrider Nov 19, 2010 5:27 PM EDT |
@hkwint: I had to read that twice to make sure you weren't being rude. :) |
| dinotrac Nov 19, 2010 5:43 PM EDT |
Seriously, TC - I can't remember. |
| cr Nov 20, 2010 2:52 PM EDT |
"Question of the day: why do we mock people who call hard drive storage "memory", but "flash memory" is acceptable?" Perhaps because, from the hardware point of view, they're two separate things, even though, when they're packaged up as USB devices, we often use them interchangeably nowadays, treating flashdrives as bulk storage. Flash memory is EEPROM, electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory, which is built to be flash-erased in blocks rather than one slow byte at a time. Nowadays, the motherboard's BIOS socket, where an EPROM would be installed, is replaced by a soldered-in Flash ROM, but that device is probably given its initial programming in an EPROM programmer updated with the Flash device's voltage and timing specs before it's soldered into place. It's all silicon, so it can improve in density and speed in line with Moore's Law up until leakage and thermal dissipation problems become insurmountable. For embedded applications, where the data changes but the program doesn't, Flash-ROM is often used as sole program storage, and the CPU executes its firmware from Flash just as it would if it were executing it from RAM. A hard drive uses a read/write head to drive saturation-level magnetic fluctuations into regions of a magnetizable surface. The basic process is the same as for a floppy, except that the rotating disk on which the magnetic surface is deposited is rigid metal or glass instead of Mylar; the heads are still moved by electromagnetic means, with the physical inertia of the head carriage or arm limiting improvements in seek times, and higher rotation speeds can only reduce the wait for the needed sector to arrive under the head just so much. Despite some incredible engineering, hard disk technology will never catch up to silicon in speed, only continue to improve in density, so those drives are forever limited to bulk storage uses; rotating magnetics haven't been used for main memory since the early mainframe days, before integrated-circuit RAM (static or dynamic) became practical. They really are two different things. |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 20, 2010 3:25 PM EDT |
Most of the people I deal with call that box that the keyboard plugs into their "hard-drive". Anything more technical than that is outside of their capabilities of understanding. Canopeners are still a high-tech innovation out here on the coastal plain. |
| cr Nov 20, 2010 3:30 PM EDT |
@bob: lol "The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!" |
| tuxchick Nov 20, 2010 8:26 PM EDT |
Almost, cr: "The secret is to bang the rocks together, with your fingers not between them!" Thanks for the technical explanation, it actually makes sense. So either it is true or you sling it good :) |
| hkwint Nov 20, 2010 8:36 PM EDT |
cr: How 'bout them hybrids? |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 20, 2010 9:22 PM EDT |
Hybrids? I wouldn't be surprised if, looking at them objectively, it doesn't turn out that their increased efficiency is entirely due to recapturing power through regenerative braking. What I'd like is a single rotor Wankel driving the generator in a plug-in hybrid. That would combine the best of several different disciplines into something very pretty, from an engineering point of view. Or were we talking about rice? |
| hkwint Nov 20, 2010 10:36 PM EDT |
Yes, we're talking about ricers, you know, the people who're trying to optimize their system to make Gentoo compile faster: http://funroll-loops.info/ I always use tmpfs on RAM as it brings great speed improvements. Nowadays, you have the Seagate drives with selective cache. They cache much-used data using some kind of heuristics, in the 'flash memory'. |
| cr Nov 21, 2010 4:48 AM EDT |
@tc:Quoting:Almost, cr: "The secret is to bang the rocks together, with your fingers not between them!" ...That's not how I heard it on the Sub-Etha broadcast... (h2g2 reference, folks, for anybody who's now scratching their head more than normal) ...Besides, with their fingers in the way they'll invent language much quicker. @hkwint: Not having worked with them or studied the data sheets, I can only guess that some or all of the on-drive cache has a flash shadow added to it to carry often-used data across power cycling. I came up the hardware side before branching into embedded and then software (embedded is still the hub of my expertise), but a lot of the new hardware arrived after I became a custodial single father and ceased to have discretionary income, so I didn't get to play with it unless it showed up at someone's curb on trash day. Thus, I only guess. @bob: wankel... I knew someone with an RX7. It was as dirty as my (then) moped at the exhaust-pipe. Have there been advancements, or do they still take two-stroke oil with their gasoline? |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 21, 2010 11:12 AM EDT |
Cr, That's someone who didn't maintain their engine. The rotary gets "ring" problems just like a piston engine, allowing oil to enter the combustion chamber. Hybrid disks are interesting. It will be fun to see where the techniques of utilizing flash memory leads. I find it most interesting that flash wears with changes, but it's so much faster so it's good for files that change. A balancing act, for sure. |
| jacog Nov 22, 2010 6:32 AM EDT |
We talk about "dialling" numbers on our phones. I have not seen a phone with anything that can be called a "dial" in years. Antiquted verb, I tells ya. I think a John's Phone (http://www.johnsphones.com/) would be feature complete if it came with a dial. |
| cr Nov 22, 2010 10:32 AM EDT |
My verbiage glitch is TMA (Too Many Acronyms). I long ago encountered it when my then sister-in-law, who's a Bradley Birth instructor, was discussing my work in embedded design with me. She stalled when I mentioned PROM, Programmable Read-Only Memory (which encompasses EEPROM, ultraviolet-erasable EPROM and fusible-link PROM but not mask-programmed ROM); in her field of expertise, that stands for Premature Rupture Of Membrane. After reading a recent Phoronix article linked here at LXer, I went searching to try to find out just what DRM they were discussing (Direct Rendering Manager), and just when that replaced Digital Rights Management as the default definition. In the process I found out that DRI is no longer the firm who marketed CP/M. |
| hkwint Nov 22, 2010 1:03 PM EDT |
Digging in Wikipedia for acronyms can be a real burden indeed! Once, SS was something you wanted to avoid at all times (at least over here), and now it seems to be social security. Looking up BSA is also quite fun! |
| hkwint Nov 22, 2010 1:04 PM EDT |
Cr by the way: dibenzoxazepine, Chromium or Costa Rica? |
| gus3 Nov 22, 2010 1:32 PM EDT |
Or carriage return? Really, Hans... |
| hkwint Nov 22, 2010 2:06 PM EDT |
gus3: Darn, you spoiled my nice riddle! |
| cr Nov 22, 2010 2:24 PM EDT |
@gus: back in the later CP/M days, my hacking signature was "CHR$(13)", so, yeah... (If you go looking for me in the Oak CP/M archives, prepare to be not impressed.) @hkwint: you forgot my hardware background, which would make it Crystal Rectifier (much to the annoyance of my NewAge friends) I had to look up that chemical name to see what that was about. From http://www.zarc.com/english/tear_gases/crdibenzoxazepine.htm... : Quoting:Due to CR’s persistent and long-term effect, presently very few liability conscious agencies use this agent. ...No wonder I'm having a hard time finding contract work! |
| jdixon Nov 22, 2010 2:49 PM EDT |
> ...No wonder I'm having a hard time finding contract work! You obviously need a few (c)haracter (r)eferences. :) |
| hkwint Nov 22, 2010 2:55 PM EDT |
Oh I'm sorry, I really didn't meant it that way! But I C hoose R esponsibility though. Just to show what great abbreviations are on Wikipedia. At least Challange Repsonse filtering taught us CR is not a bot! |
| dinotrac Aug 01, 2011 10:24 AM EDT |
I mock you all for being too challenged to realize that it is all shared external memory in the same sense that books and elders are. |
| gus3 Aug 01, 2011 12:22 PM EDT |
It took you 8-1/2 months to come up with that witty rejoinder? |
| cr Aug 01, 2011 2:02 PM EDT |
Throw another syslog on the campfire and gather round, Ol' Dino's gonna tell it like it was. |
| dinotrac Aug 01, 2011 2:15 PM EDT |
@gus 3: Yes. I'm brilliant, not fast. |
| jdixon Aug 01, 2011 3:44 PM EDT |
I think the thread got resurrected by a spammer before Dino made his comment. |
| dinotrac Aug 01, 2011 6:33 PM EDT |
@jdixon: Resurrection? I'm sorry, pal, but religion lies outside of the TOS. |
| jdixon Aug 01, 2011 7:10 PM EDT |
> .I'm sorry, pal, but religion lies outside of the TOS. True, Dino. I apologize. I should have said resuscitated. |
| tracyanne Aug 01, 2011 7:11 PM EDT |
Not Resurrection, this is one of the immortals. |
| tuxchick Aug 01, 2011 11:00 PM EDT |
Resurrected it is, because dinosaurs have been extinct for like lots of years. |
| hkwint Aug 02, 2011 7:00 AM EDT |
You clearly haven't seen Godzilla / Jurassic park! Because Dean has a role in it. |
| dinotrac Aug 03, 2011 9:14 AM EDT |
I am bemused by your silly little chatter. Just so long as you remember to bow and scrape accordingly. |
| TxtEdMacs Aug 03, 2011 10:14 AM EDT |
Quoting: [As] so long as you remember to bow and scrape accordingly. What do you mean remember? If you don't you get your head mangled removing the barnacles and other debris that automagically attaches to hulls when exposed the the salt water environment. I not only bow and scrape; I stomp on it when I peal it away. Good riddance I say. But what was the point of your post? YBT |
| tuxchick Aug 04, 2011 12:33 AM EDT |
We am now embiggened. |
| dinotrac Aug 04, 2011 4:21 PM EDT |
Aye. |
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