IBM Makes a movie using only atoms

[Stonent]

Amazing, a 90 second animated movie created by moving atoms around.
http://techland.time.com/2013/05/01/tiny-toon-ibm-makes-a-movie-out-of-atoms/

[digsys]

What actor did they get to play the boy? It wasn't in the credits .... :-)

[SeanB]

His name was Carbon Monoxide............ CO for short!

[N2IXK]

Uh, aren't ALL movies (and everything else for that matter) made using "only" atoms?

[c4757p]

Uh, aren't ALL movies (and everything else for that matter) made using "only" atoms?

Hey! You beat me to being a smartass! I came here just to say that! 

[vlf3]

Well yes, at base level within our universe !... still, it takes a considerable amount of know-how to corral Atoms and then manipulate them. 

[kfitch42]

Uh, aren't ALL movies (and everything else for that matter) made using "only" atoms?

I was under the impression that photons (and maybe even electrons) played some significant role in making movies 

[N2IXK]

Well, it consists only of photons and sound waves by the time you actually watch it, I guess.

Guess you need to define exactly what constitutes the physical "movie". Is it the actual film exposed in the camera?  The original draft of the screenplay?

[Hydrawerk]

I like their old equipment... 
http://technet.idnes.cz/nejmensi-video-ibm-atom-0vm-/veda.aspx?c=A130501_160545_veda_pka

[kfitch42]

I like their old equipment... 

The pic where he is inserting a 3.5" floppy ... is that just staged (do something technical for the camera), or do people actually still use them?

Heck, does anyone even still manufacture 3.5" floppies?

The soda can really adds a bit of flair to their setup

[c4757p]

None of that equipment looks extremely new - when was the photo taken? Even early-mid 2000s would make the floppy much more likely.

[Joules]

Cheap skates, did you see the size of their set...

[SeanB]

If you built it 20 years ago, and it cost $20 000 000, and there is no Moore's law making it cheaper you will not upgrade anything as long as it works or can be fixed. Thus the floppies, and the controller computers dating back to that time, probably still running OS/2 Warp as well. Might even still have a few 286/386 units there doing the heavy lifting in the racks as well, the ones IBM made themselves were designed to last pretty much forever.

[PA0PBZ]

If you watch the 'making of' they talk about about atoms but also about molecules:  at 1:26 and 1:46.




Assuming that they know the difference, what is it?

[blasto9000]

I like their old equipment... 

The pic where he is inserting a 3.5" floppy ... is that just staged (do something technical for the camera), or do people actually still use them?

Heck, does anyone even still manufacture 3.5" floppies?

At a former employer, we made state of the art RF transmitters (high power, extreme wideband), and many times for black projects.  The Agilent network analyzers still used 3.5" FDDs to move data from the analyzer to other analyzers or PCs.

I'll give you this though, we were CERTAIN to take very good care of our stock of 3.5" floppies as replacements didn't exactly grow on trees!

[kfitch42]

At a former employer, we made state of the art RF transmitters (high power, extreme wideband), and many times for black projects.  The Agilent network analyzers still used 3.5" FDDs to move data from the analyzer to other analyzers or PCs.

Reasonable enough.

I'll give you this though, we were CERTAIN to take very good care of our stock of 3.5" floppies as replacements didn't exactly grow on trees!

Hmm, you know how they have those faked out cassettes to use your iProd with your car's tape player ... how hard would it be to make a high(er) reliability flash based 'floppy'? Even if it cost $100+ I suspect there might be just barely enough people with older test equipment to make it worthwhile to produce.

[PA0PBZ]

Hmm, you know how they have those faked out cassettes to use your iProd with your car's tape player ... how hard would it be to make a high(er) reliability flash based 'floppy'? Even if it cost $100+ I suspect there might be just barely enough people with older test equipment to make it worthwhile to produce.

It's easier to replace the drive with something like this:



And then just plug in an USB stick. Low cost also 

http://www.amazon.com/Floppy-Drive-Emulator-Emulator-Keep-Install/dp/B0083Z29JO

_{(didn't know these existed, but you made me think and I googled "solid state 3.5 floppy")}

[kfitch42]

It's easier to replace the drive with something like this:



And then just plug in an USB stick. Low cost also 

Yeah, that is a better approach ... assuming the test equipment uses the 'standard' PC floppy interface... which is probably a reasonable assumption.

[SeanB]

Sony made those "floppy" adaptors for the original Mavica cameras. Not good memories of them. The product was nice enough, the drivers though were fantastically buggy, craptastic and incredibly slow. To read 1M took longer than what it took to write and verify to a real diskette. As a lus the software did come on a pair of diskettes though, no CDROMS for the first time. Of course only supported Sony MS and only the ones up to 8M. They might have improved later, but USB was more common by then, and there were drivers that did then like Sony cameras.

Still have the camera, even with the batteries so old that you get to take 3 photos between charges.

[baljemmett]

It's easier to replace the drive with something like this:
[...]
And then just plug in an USB stick. Low cost also 

Oh, nice, that's a lot cheaper than the models I saw a few years ago -- might grab one of those for my piano, the last few 3.5" floppies I've tried in it have been flaky as hell.

[westfw]

I had a medical ultrasound about 18 months ago, and was unimpressed that the machine had a 3.5inch floppy.
I suppose that it's more a matter of having the discipline not to upgrade your computers for no reason other than "I can."
(OTHO, there are also costs associated with continued use of "old" equipment.)

[4to20Milliamps]

1,000,000 to 12  That's quite a leap forward in storage density, a few months from now we'll be wondering why people are still using their old flash drives.

[digsys]

That's crap !!! No one really uses more than 1.4MB anyway ....

[4to20Milliamps]

That's crap !!! No one really uses more than 1.4MB anyway ....

You're right, and a 500 Mb hard drive is plenty of space I can't imagine what you would need any more for.

[ecat]

That's crap !!! No one really uses more than 1.4MB anyway ....

You're right, and a 500 Mb hard drive is plenty of space I can't imagine what you would need any more for.

Seagate CEO Bill Watkins...

Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn.

So roll on the 50,000TB 2.5" hard drives I say. At £2 per petabyte I think they'd sell well.