03-05-2017, 03:22 PM
At first, it was enough to paint on the wall of the family cave as it was hunted. Then came the people who invented the spoken languages and there was a need to record what was being said without hearing it firsthand. Therefore, years later, the first scholars wrote to convey what was said. The pictures gave way to letters that represented spoken sounds. Finally, the clay tablets gave way to the parchment, which gave way to the paper. Paper was, and still is, the main way people transmit information. However, in the mid-twentieth century computers began to come into general use. Computers have gone through their own evolution in storage media. In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, everyone who took a computer course used punch cards to give information to the computer and store data. In 1956, IBM researchers developed the first disk storage system. This was called RAMAC (random access method of Accounting and Control).
Since the days of punch cards, computer manufacturers have struggled to squeeze data into smaller spaces. This mission has produced both competitive and complementary data storage technology, including electronic circuits, magnetic media such as hard drives and tapes, and optical media such as compact discs. Nowadays, companies constantly push the limits of these technologies to improve their speed, reliability and performance, all of which reducing costs. The fastest and most costly storage technology today is based on electronic storage in a circuit like a solid state "drive" or flashRAM. This technology is becoming faster and is able to store more information thanks to improved circuit fabrication techniques that reduce chip size characteristics. Plans are in place to put up to one gigabyte of data on a single chip.
While magnetic and semiconductor-based storage devices have been in use since the mid-1950s, today's computers and information volumes require increasingly efficient and faster methods of storing data. While the speed of integrated circuit random access memory (RAM) has steadily increased over the past ten to fifteen years, the boundaries of these systems are aptly approximated. In response to the rapid evolution of computing and the demand for lower physical capacity, higher bandwidth, a number of alternative methods for storing information from integrated circuits have emerged recently.
Since the days of punch cards, computer manufacturers have struggled to squeeze data into smaller spaces. This mission has produced both competitive and complementary data storage technology, including electronic circuits, magnetic media such as hard drives and tapes, and optical media such as compact discs. Nowadays, companies constantly push the limits of these technologies to improve their speed, reliability and performance, all of which reducing costs. The fastest and most costly storage technology today is based on electronic storage in a circuit like a solid state "drive" or flashRAM. This technology is becoming faster and is able to store more information thanks to improved circuit fabrication techniques that reduce chip size characteristics. Plans are in place to put up to one gigabyte of data on a single chip.
While magnetic and semiconductor-based storage devices have been in use since the mid-1950s, today's computers and information volumes require increasingly efficient and faster methods of storing data. While the speed of integrated circuit random access memory (RAM) has steadily increased over the past ten to fifteen years, the boundaries of these systems are aptly approximated. In response to the rapid evolution of computing and the demand for lower physical capacity, higher bandwidth, a number of alternative methods for storing information from integrated circuits have emerged recently.