Sponsor's Message

I recall the days when a single 128-bit (that's BIT, not byte, Kbyte or Mbyte!) memory chip cost what would be about $20 in today's money. Things got better in the late 1970s when economies of scale and improved yields meant that a 2Kbyte RAM chip cost just $60 in today's money -- but memory was still very expensive stuff.

Now we find that the average PC ships with at least 256MB of memory and you can buy portable media players with 1GB or more of solid-state memory onboard. What's more, these things cost just a tiny fraction the price of the first IBM PC, a machine that had just two 340Kbyte floppies and 64Kbytes of RAM.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

RAM prices are now at an all-time low, and we're not just talking about the kind of RAM that forgets its contents when the lights go out.

Flash-RAM doesn't suffer from power-off amnesia and can retain its contents for many, many years -- effectively making it a great way to store and shift data around in a harsh environment.

Many of the devices we now take for example would not be practical without the now ubiquitous flash memory cards that can now be had in sizes of up to 1GB. What's more, the massive growth in this area of consumer electronics means that prices for these solid-state memory devices continues to free-fall and it's only a matter of time before we see 5GB, 20GB or even 100GB versions.

How long therefore, before the hard drive becomes a legacy device?

I'd wager that within five years, most of the portable PCs on the market will rely on large amounts of flash ram rather than fragile hard drives.

I'd also wager that versions of these memory cards with hard DRM will eventually become the predominant method for the physical sale of music and other media.

With the recording and movie industries suffering terminal paranoia in respect to protecting their wares, a "locked-down" memory card that only spews out a decrypted data-stream when all the DRM parameters are correctly matched probably sounds like a great idea.

What's more, if the industry designs such a standard and dictates that it will only provide its product in this format then the manufacturing companies will simply have to follow along -- and probably pay royalties for the privilege.

Of course we know that such a scheme won't work -- but the beancounters at the RIAA will (as usual) ignore such sage observations and continue regardless.

So yes, the future is in flash ram and it's a big future!

Go have your say in The Aardvark Forums

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!