MovieChat Forums > Johnny Mnemonic (1995) Discussion > Techie discussion about storage capacity...

Techie discussion about storage capacity.

posted 16 years ago by hkp0lice
33 replies | jump to latest

I remember the first PC I bought back in 1997 had a Pentium 233Mhz MMX with 64MB of SDRAM and a western digital 4.3GB HD.

That was almost the top of the line PC available back then, so let's assume that the average HD was around 2GB in 1995?

I guess back then, imagining a 160GB HD or even 320GB of data would seem very 'futuristic' but funny enough, reality advanced faster than sci-fi.

What this got me thinking about is optical vs magnetic storage. CDs were available back in 1995 when the film was made, storing an impressive 650MB per disc, vs 2GB in the average HD (therefore, optical discs hold about 30% the data of an average HD). Compare that to now: even a double layered Blu-ray disc can only hold about 50GB of data and the average HD is easily 500GB+ which translates into less than 10% the data.

Seems like optical storage is lagging behind a lot.

[–] bring_back_Pluto 16 years ago

in 1995? to be fair, I think the average HD would have been lucky to break the single gig barrier. I bought a fairly decent computer back in 1994, and it had about 600 megs of storage space ... I recall people starting to talk about "gigabytes" around 96/97ish, and it blew my mind - like it was pure science fiction ...

you're right, man - tech advanced much faster than sci fi could have predicted... hard to believe! I wonder where we'll be in another ten/fifteen years!

edit: I looked it up, man - apparently about 400mb was average in the mid 90s...

[–] rhik 15 years ago

i rem i got my first computer back in 1997. it was a 133MHz with 650 MB HDD with a non imaging internet connection call giascl01. Got a TCP/IP net onnection only in 1999 which was damn costly then.Heard of a GB HDD only around Y2K. Digital imaging as i first rem of it was of sony digital mavica which used a floppy to store images. it was around 2001. today its a race of how smaller the chip and the cam can be. really what will 2021 like be. Hope we really dnt bcum victims of acute nerve attenuation syndrome (ANAS) as shown in the lovely movie of JOHNNY MNEMONIC. What do u guys think?

[–] jimmymack7 15 years ago

Hope we really dnt bcum victims of acute nerve attenuation syndrome (ANAS) as shown in the lovely movie of JOHNNY MNEMONIC. What do u guys think?

I think some of us already have it...

"Lo fa, ne-ko shi-ma, de va-ja blade, Blade Runner."

[–] stalingradiii 11 years ago

Yes and there was some Over The Edge cds with 450 mb, i think was maxxel,and then they jump to 700 mb, remember that tine when all the downloaded movies was at 699 mb?

Now we al talking about Terabites.

Planet of the Apes alternate ending...So they have one of this too in this planet?

[–] TVippy 11 years ago

That's all true and all, BUT the progress has slowed down DRAMATICALLY since then. The situation won't repeat itself.

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I own you.

[–] the_la_baker 11 years ago

That's all true and all, BUT the progress has slowed down DRAMATICALLY since then. The situation won't repeat itself.

How has it slowed down?

Moore's Law, look it up.

The law has often met obstacles that first appeared insurmountable but were indeed surmounted before long.

I guess you haven't heard about;
Intel’s new Quark CPU core, OAM technologies is already delivering a mind-bending 2.5 Terabits per second (Tbps)"Vortex" Wi-Fi, heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)HDDs, and more coming soon to common technology near you.

[–] TVippy 11 years ago

"Coming soon" won't cut it. We'll talk when they get here. They've been in the works for many year and still no consumer prototypes.

Moore's Law's no longer working, which he's admitted himself...

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I own you.

[–] eoval 9 years ago

Consumer prototypes have nothing to do with it - affordability of production and consumption has a lot, however. Moore may have conceded that the 2 year theory isn't quite dead on, but that doesn't mean the process is not continuing roughly apace of his original law. Just re-watched JM for the first time in 10 years and I was staggered at both its poor prognostications and general cheesiness, however.

"I do not like mixing up moralities and mathematics."
Churchill

[–] darjeeling443 9 years ago

"Moore's Law, look it up. "

And has NOTHING to do with storage.

Look it up.

[–] swimminginjeans 10 years ago

My first computer was 540MB sometime in early 90's... I just laugh now.

[–] ssllaasskk 9 years ago

Bah!
My first one had 1k.
In 1981.

[–] isuck-7 16 years ago

1GB was almost as big (or bigger) as 1TB is now.
funny though i remember (when i watched in the movie back then) they used 1GB/2GB (after compression)...

[–] mattinthehouse1 16 years ago

Well, my pc from '96 had a 1.2gig HD and was pretty high spec, had a 200mhz pentium pro (fastest available.)

I think they used 2 gig (can't remember if it was 2 or 2.5 now), because it was a suitably impressive but not ridiculous (to people back then) size. As you say, its funny how its now swung the other way to it seeming a tiny amount due to the pace computing has advanced in the last 15 years.

On top of this, we now know that the average human "saves" over 30 million images in their life, so in the event it was possible to store code format data in a human brain, 2.5 gig would be sweet FA in terms of space.

They called me Mr. Glass :'(

[–] DrSamba 16 years ago

The first PC I bought in 1986 had either a 5 or 10 MB hard drive. Then in 1987 I bought a used 120 MB drive for $400 that at the time sold for $3000 new. At the time I justified it by telling my wife it would be the most hard drive I would ever need to get. Now we throw around 500 GB drives like nothing.

[–] chilichilipepper 11 years ago

Heck, we have flash drives that will hold 256 GB now. I have 8 terabytes on my main computer (and it's mostly filled).

[–] swimminginjeans 9 years ago

Yeah back then it was actually enough. There was no stuff to d/l. we had like 30 second .wav files as music, pictures were like 100bytes, and the internet was smooth ad free and simple... I first had AOL, but as an outcast I quickly joined CompuServe, used to save dirty pictures my mom never knew how to access.

[–] wesje1001 16 years ago

You should also take into consideration that 160 or 320 GB is going into a person's head. We use that amount of storage capacity today like its nothing, but a Hard drive with that capacity takes up something the size of about a deck of playing cards. In the movie, I'm guessing that amount of memory is stored in something smaller than a flash drive.

[–] bring_back_Pluto 15 years ago

realistically, for something to be small enough to fit inside somebody's head (without removing sections of brain) - maybe it's even smaller... maybe it's the size of a tiny ball bearing! that would be pretty impressive

[–] Magic_313 15 years ago

In the movie, I'm guessing that amount of memory is stored in something smaller than a flash drive.

Watch the movie again. The data is copied from a minidisc.

[–] polsixe 14 years ago

They kind of show the size of the device in Johnny's head in the movie when Spider is scanning him and prepping for surgery. Flat roughly circular bigger than a golf ball diameter in the top,back of the head.

[–] wateraxe-1 15 years ago

I think if we want to look into the bottom of this, we need to look at max storage space / square mm, and how long it generally takes for this to double in size. compute through to 2017 and guestimate the size of a brain implant.

I think you'll find that 320gb is not that far off.

good luck :)

[–] mxb2001 15 years ago

Actually recall that in the movie it is said that he sacrificed a chunk of brain storing his childhood memories so it did take some room. The graphic showed something about the size of a couple of stacked quarters.

When I watch this movie I always think of him using that memory doubler as zipping up the files or using drivespace. Then I can't help wondering how the hell can he fit 320 GB into 160 GB RAM? It's already using compression so where did it get stored? In his synapses? Pretty far fetched.

Oh and since you all had fun listing your 95-97 computers so will I. :) In 97 it was an almost top of the line P-166 MMX with 32 MB RAM and a 2.5 GB Maxtor HD. The HD went kaput in 2003 but the rest I still use. Recently I've seen an ad for a 1 TB HD for ~$100 locally. Heh! Triple what Just Johnny needed. Still RAM is really more applicable, not HD storage. 80 GB RAM by 2021? Easy.

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01/01/01

[–] kaligula1234 12 years ago

Sounds like people are trying to estimate how much data could be stored in the device in his head, but I got the impression that the device was just to transfer data from a computer to his actual brain tissue. If it was just a storage device why would it even need to be in his head? And why would there be a problem with the data leaking? It was stored on hardware it would either fit or it wouldn't.

Only thing that bothered me about that is I would have thought that the brain was capable of storing many petabytes of info, and that even if he'd only had the room previously used by his childhood memories, 320GB still wouldn't have been a problem. Depends how efficiently binary data could be stored in synapses using the technology though.

[–] omega2064 11 years ago

That was the impression I got too. That the devixe was the interface and that the data was stored literally in his brain flat out. Taking up places where his real memory would be. But somehow now partitioned off to some degree.

[–] Suskis 15 years ago

Optical storage is doomed. Any support is dommed.
I have a single 2TB hd with 1900 movies inside it. all my collection coming with me inside my pocket. that is the future.
next os will be CHROME OS. cloud computing, everything online with unlimited disk space. this is something no movie ever predicted.
as usual, reality beats imagination 10 to 1.

'What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof.' (Euclid)

[–] bakabox 14 years ago

Having all my data stored on servers... I'm not ready for that. I prefer physically present things. I want to access my data even though the net breaks down, I want to keep my data in case something happens to the external servers and I want to secure my own privacy. Regarding the last bit, it might be a slight case of cyberpunk-induced paranoia, but companies like Google are turning into megacorporations - who knows what kind of power they might have in the future. The less they know about me, and have control over me, the better. That being said, I do utilize Gmail, but I'm skeptical.

m_anirbanghosh: I had a 30gb hdd in my computer mid-2000, so we were well past the gb-mark by the millenium.

[–] OzDrDj 13 years ago

i thnk it was around 95 when i installed two 1gb drives in a friends computer. a 486 running windows 3.11. We were astounded by the magnitude of this. Oh my god, how will i ever use such space. HaHaHa. And as for cloud computing, Im with you, be buggered some corporation having access to all my stuff. No way known. Then again I was never going to go past windows 98. I was never using xp, and here i am now on Windows 7 with 12gb of memory and 4.5tb of drive space. Never say never i guess, But stll this cloud computing idea still sounds like complete caca to me!
As for Flash storage in your head, hmmm, I did buy a kingston 256gb flash drive recetly, although it didnt work, but i guess its happening now.
Aint technology grand!

[–] tiberianfiend 12 years ago

The original Windows 95 couldn't handle partitions larger than the 2.1 GB barrier of DOS, so that tells you about where the capacity was at the time.

[–] Strazdamonas 12 years ago

I had one from 1993 and it held 1,2GB.
CDs were a new thing in 1995 and tiher hld was impressive, but not many used them because for exampled my PC didnt even have the drive till i got it at like 1998 or so.
Optical discs are limited by their technlogy and size. there is only so much burns you can do it so much surface. the technology behind magnetic actually proresses, and thus they manage to make it more compact.
The average HD being sold now is 1-2TB. optical storage will lag because of multiple reasons. one, its a single-use item. vs the USB sticks that have thoeretical over 10.000 repwrites and practical over 1000 till they start falling apart. Its clunky and neds special reading device, vs usb data which uses universal connector and is small to carry around.
Optical discs also became obsolete as a data carriadge with internet.

the rela fiht now is of HDD vs SDD, while SDD is much faster, it is still much smaller and way less realiable.

As for techie discussion i saw very little tech stuff here though. much be used to be on more nerdy forums i guess.

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Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.

[–] daisukekamiya-1 11 years ago

According to the trailer, Johnny, living in the year 2021 (a little over 7 years from now), has "nearly 80 gigs" stored in a device that looks to be half the size of a credit card (let's say 50 mm) inside his brain.

In 2013 a 32 mm SDXC memory card can hold 256 GB.

Giving the benefit of the doubt that Johnny's implant has to be a little bigger to accomidate anchor it in the brain tissue and take care of heating issues and stuff like that, I would say they gave him a quarter of the memory he should be capable of holding. Still, not a bad estimate for 20 years ago.

[–] chilichilipepper 11 years ago

Well, if you only saw the trailer, the main stories in the movie (Spoiler alert)

He had 80 gigs, but he needed an upgrade for the job that required 360 gig of storage. he never got the upgrade so he uses a "doubler" that basically overclocks his storage to handle twice as much info. He isn't aware of the size of the information he is transporting and it starts to "bleed" into his brain so to speak.

So in essence, considering a brain implant that stores data, the movie was pretty spot on if you think about it. a 360 gig storage implant (which would probably be a solid state drive that even today is just gaining popularity) that doesn't completely screw up your entire brain? Hell i'll be suprised if we have anything like that in 2021. I mean just the possibility of being able to link your brain into a computer is a concept that is starting to be explored, but won't be completed any time soon, let alone in 7 years.

*edited to be more precise, just watched the movie again*