A 1TB hard drive

[Trev]

The industry is moving towards a zero-storage-management, always-on computing environment.  High density storage advances in both memory and disks and large address spaces (e.g. >= 64-bit) mean never having to delete files or free memory when you need to allocate new resources. Services like Gmail are setting the stage for one hell of a paradigm shift.

And my money's on stem cell and other types of genetic research, not cybernetics.

[Trev]

Yup. And that's why I haven't been using my Gmail account--although I think they support deleting things "for real" now. Assuming usage patterns don't change significantly and assuming the technology is available, with 2^64 bytes of RAM in your system, you'll never have to free memory. Ever. I think that's irresponsible, as it indicates a shift towards more rapid consumption of resources in the real world. Social ramifications aside, it's exciting to see the industry getting out of its slump.

@argo

I think that's already a reality. It's quite embarrassing to read some of the Usenet posts I made during the early 90's. :-)