Gathering dust around your home and mine are many megabytes of RAM, SIMM, DIMM, … and so on. For one reason or another, obsolescence, salvage, changed prioritites, paid in memory, … the list goes on; the reasons fade with time but the chips lie behind. A handful of 4meg chips got me thinking, and so did a ring-binder I use for arranging business cards.

Wouldn't it be nice if a ring binder could be fitted with a controller and a USB cable, and pages made with bus architecture inside each page? Then, gather up all your old memory and plug them into pages, put the pages into a binder and plug the USB cable into its port. Your computer would be able to access a proportionately larger RAM space for loading programs and files, for a sacrifice in speed that may be acceptable for some users.

Also, with an artsy cover it would look great on your bookshelf!
-- reensure, Jun 12 2002

Supercomputing http://www.halfbake...idea/supercomputing
An idea whose time is come (and gone). [reensure, Jun 13 2002]

Most common question: http://www.fortunec.../nixieclock/ncp.htm
"Your <i>what</i> Clock Project ?" [thumbwax, Jun 14 2002]

//Wouldn't it be nice if//
I'm certain you didn't really mean that.
-- angel, Jun 12 2002


What reensure *meant* to say was not //Wouldn't it be nice if// but "what I propose is"
-- thumbwax, Jun 12 2002


(honest, guv.)

I'd prefer a plastic box to keep them dust-free but appreciate the idea. As the memory would be slower you could allocate it as a ram disk or us it as disk cache memory.
-- st3f, Jun 12 2002


How big a battery would it need to keep it from going poof when unplugged? This would actually be cool...
-- StarChaser, Jun 12 2002


A *rechargable* battery that pulls power from the USB bus.
-- phoenix, Jun 12 2002


Oh yes, I can just see it. And while you're making the RamFile, why not make a plug-in adaptor that allows you to connect all those old 5.25 and 8 inch diskettes via your DVD drive ? I don't think so. How about a USB paper tape reader while you're at it ?

Come on man, technology moves on. It's not worth it. Let it go ......
-- 8th of 7, Jun 12 2002


Use USB2, gotta love that high transfer rate...
-- [ sctld ], Jun 12 2002


I work on elderly tube type radios and am currently in the process of starting to begin building a clock using Nixies, so telling me to let it go doesn't work really well.
-- StarChaser, Jun 14 2002


Very cool, StarChaser - I'd love to be able to woik on a Tube Amp of mine, but it's sorta death-defying
-- thumbwax, Jun 14 2002


Not that big a deal...just make sure it's turned off and unplugged, for the most part.
-- StarChaser, Jun 14 2002


Apparently when the US captured the Mig fighter that had been frightening F-14 pilots, they found that the on-board computer used valves.
[thumb]: I do quite a bit of work on my valve amps; do like [Star] says, and make sure the reservoir caps are discharged (540V in those suckers!).
-- angel, Jun 14 2002


Don't knock the humble thermionic valve, old boy. They may be power hungry and bulky, but they are very resilient - especially to radiation and EMP wich can wipe out semiconductors before you can say "preemptive strike".

Never underestimate the effectiveness of the previous generation's technology. Remember what happened to the Bismark !
-- 8th of 7, Jun 14 2002


I knoooooooooooooow to unplug, silly - It's actually discharging the caps...
*ZAAaaaAAAAAaaaaPPPPP*
(Entire City Flickers as Burns and Smithers watch Springfield and the Power Meter)
<M. Burns>hmmmm, Smithers - looks like this energy conservation fad is finally going the way of the dodo</M. Burns>

-- thumbwax, Jun 14 2002


[8th]: I'm not knocking the valve; in fact, I'm a huge fan. I have quite a collection of unused military-spec Mullards which I use in my amplifiers.
[thumb]: The official way to discharge caps is through a 5W 1megohm resistor, but I usually just short them to ground through a big (insulated) screwdriver. Nice sparks. If they're old leaky ones, they'll discharge themselves after a few minutes.
-- angel, Jun 14 2002


//Never underestimate the effectiveness of the previous generation's technology//

This from the man who also wrote:

//Come on man, technology moves on. It's not worth it. Let it go//
-- [ sctld ], Jun 14 2002


WIBNI they had a USB floppy drive that could read every known 3.5 inch format...Amiga..Apple...400k Mac disks...

Technology has produced a wax cylinder that will be playable after 100 years have passed...and a floppy disk that becomes unreadable in 4 years.
-- Amishman35, Jun 15 2002


And the people said . . .
-- reensure, Jun 16 2002


They should also make a USB Punched Card reader with an automatic feeder.
-- Amishman35, Jun 17 2002



random, halfbakery