At 19:57 -0500 4/22/04, Sellam wrote:
> The computer is now just
>hardware, and soon enough, with cool technology like keychain harddrives
>or what not, you'll bring in your own OS and software tools and modify the
>hardware to your purposes, leaving it as it was for the next user.
I think the NeXT Optical drives were intended to provide a
functionality like this. Carry your own OD media around, stuff it
into the NeXT you sit down at, and your entire (256Mbyte) environment
is right there with you. (I'm not sure I have a reference to support
this, though. Maybe NeXT sales materials? Anyone else?)
Performance didn't live up to the rapidly moving HD performance of
the day, and the idea got overtaken by network via ethernet. Sit
down, telnet into your machine back home.
That makes me think that the idea will only work where 1) the
portable medium has pretty good performance (speed-wise) relative to
current primary mass storage, and 2) The OS/environment startup
process is relatively short (say, maybe, < 20 seconds?)
--
- Mark
210-522-6025, page 888-733-0967
Received on Fri Apr 23 2004 - 09:12:49 BST