Word: disks
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Spilled milk may be worth crying about in at least one instance: when the stuff happens to land on a floppy disk. These sensitive magnetic devices, which carry the software and data used in personal computers, can be rendered useless by a tiny amounts of errant dust or goo. When that happens, the user's work is lost. The problem inspired Polaroid, a new contender in the nearly $1 billion market for floppies, to make the bold claim last March that it could bring any of its damaged disks back to life for no charge. Last week the company boasted...
About 20 consumers and computer magazine editors put Polaroid to the test by heaping indignities on their disks. Staffers at one computer journal poured a hot-fudge sundae on theirs. Another publication sent Polaroid a floppy covered with mustard, catsup and relish. One disk had been used as a chew toy by a golden retriever. In all those cases, Polaroid was able to clean the disk or electronically transfer the user's work to fresh floppies. The only disk that was less than 100% salvageable was one that a user had sabotaged by riddling it with staples...
...medical memory card is in part the brainchild of Computer Whiz Douglas Becker, 19, of Baltimore, who approached Blue Cross after reading about laser cards in computer magazines. Like the videodisk and compact audio disk, the laser card, which was developed by Drexler Technology Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., depends on laser optic technology, in which a low-power laser beam is used both to burn digital information onto the card and to "read" that information by scanning the surface. Says Becker: "This is a new application for an older mousetrap...
...verbs. The improved parser permits players to display their literary bent by using more complex commands. Zork I, for instance, will respond to more expansive instructions (example: pick up the rusty knife and put it in the sack). Partly as a result, Zork I became the best-selling disk-based game of all time (500,000 copies...
...public taste. McCarthy treated her Ivy maidens with defoliating wit; Segal bastes his Harvard yardbirds with sophomore-level prose: "The athletic season culminated with the many confrontations against Yale" and "While it was arguable that his interpretation of the complete Beethoven piano concerti was the best thing put on disk during the previous twelve months, it was indisputable that his publicity campaign was nonpareil...