Goran,

Can you provide some references? And, by the way, what about files as
backup? Aren't all these memory technologies volatile? You need something
that persists even if all power in the world fails, don't you?

Ivan


> -----Original Message-----
> From: goran.hultgren at bluefish.se [mailto:goran.hultgren at bluefish.se]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 12:29 PM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: [OT] MRAM, spintronics, the future
> 
> 
> Hi all!
> 
> Earlier today we had a somewhat heated discussion here at 
> Bluefish about
> the implications of upcoming MRAM technology. Personally I think MRAM
> will turn everything upside down - secondary and primary memory will
> turn into one, the border will blur, chaos will reign. Well, 
> perhaps not
> that last one. ;-)
> 
> Save a document? Start a program? Reboot? A filesystem? 
> ...why? :-) All
> programs can be kept running all the time etc. A document can simply
> "stay" in memory. Why change representation into a bucket of bits?
> 
> And of course Squeak as an OS gets even more interesting. One of the
> questions we debated was the necessity of having a filesystem 
> at all. I
> argue that they may turn obsolete in their current form. By 
> "filesystem"
> I meant more or less a hierarchical namespace of bitchunks mostly only
> accessible locally on the host.
> 
> IMHO there is only one good reason for having "files" and that is
> because all the behaviour in the computer (OS, programs) have been
> written in a wide variety of languages and bitchunks are the only
> general form of data that "any and all" programs can handle.
> 
> It would be interesting what Alan - or anyone else with a mind focused
> on the future :-) - has to say about what will happen when MRAM enters
> the stage.
> 
> And according to an article today these things may come as 
> early as next
> year...
> 
> regards, Goran
> 
>