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Message no. 1
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Data Storage
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 03:03:28 -0400
I don't have a copy of VR 2.0, so I'm not able to look this up to
get real data, but I seem to recall that an optical chip burner is a fairly
expensive piece of hardware, and not tiny. And the name implies that it's
a permanent process. So, my question is...what's the 2060 read-write data
storage medium? Some equivilant of the diskette ought to exist - maybe
not magnetic, and maybe not a disk, but a rewritable media of some sort
that can be moved between machines. It might just be live memory in a case
with a small battery, if memory costs are cheap enough, but I'd expect
some sort of rewritable datasoft, with a drive that's not very large at
all.
Anything like that in VR 2 that I'm forgetting, from my long-ago
perusal of it?

--Sean
Message no. 2
From: J-F Robert <Chant_Obscur@*******.FR>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 13:17:13 +0200
-----Message d'origine-----
De : Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Date : mercredi 16 septembre 1998 10:14
Objet : Data Storage


> I don't have a copy of VR 2.0, so I'm not able to look this up to
>get real data, but I seem to recall that an optical chip burner is a fairly
>expensive piece of hardware, and not tiny. And the name implies that it's
>a permanent process. So, my question is...what's the 2060 read-write data
>storage medium? Some equivilant of the diskette ought to exist - maybe
>not magnetic, and maybe not a disk, but a rewritable media of some sort
>that can be moved between machines. It might just be live memory in a case
>with a small battery, if memory costs are cheap enough, but I'd expect
>some sort of rewritable datasoft, with a drive that's not very large at
>all.
> Anything like that in VR 2 that I'm forgetting, from my long-ago
>perusal of it?
>
> --Sean
>

I may be wrong, not having the VR2.0 book with me right now
but my take was that there are read/write optical chip, which are
burned only before installing them on a computer, in a process
I think similar to the way one is to format a disk. These are called
O.M.C. as in Optical Memory Chip.

The Green Angel
Message no. 3
From: Mongoose <evamarie@**********.NET>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 15:39:57 -0700
: I don't have a copy of VR 2.0, so I'm not able to look this up to
:get real data, but I seem to recall that an optical chip burner is a
fairly
:expensive piece of hardware, and not tiny. And the name implies that it's
:a permanent process. So, my question is...what's the 2060 read-write data
:storage medium? Some equivilant of the diskette ought to exist - maybe
:not magnetic, and maybe not a disk, but a rewritable media of some sort
:that can be moved between machines. It might just be live memory in a
case
:with a small battery, if memory costs are cheap enough, but I'd expect
:some sort of rewritable datasoft, with a drive that's not very large at
:all.
: Anything like that in VR 2 that I'm forgetting, from my long-ago
:perusal of it?


Yup. "OMC"- optical memory chips- are the basis of active, storage,
and headware memory and re-writable removable media. "OCC"- optical code
chips- are what you need a chip burner to make, and serve as the core
operating instructions for various devices (like most deck components).
IN SR#, it states they also serve as NON-rewritbale (and only partially
re-producible) removable media; thus, skillsofts and BTL come on OCC, but
most music and such (I'd guess) on OMC (if not disc).
I just happened to read that section last night; quell chance, n'est
pas?

Mongoose
Message no. 4
From: Micheal Feeney <Starrngr@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 18:41:18 EDT
In a message dated 98-09-16 17:10:04 EDT, you write:

<< IN SR#, it states they also serve as NON-rewritbale (and only partially
re-producible) removable media; thus, skillsofts and BTL come on OCC, but
most music and such (I'd guess) on OMC (if not disc).
I just happened to read that section last night; quell chance, n'est
pas? >>

Which brings up a question that just occured to me. I have a charecter who I
have described as having a love of very old music (1960's.. The sort of stuff
you hear on Oldies stations today) and Old TV. In accordance with that, I
purchased a music player and a video screen and 10 music and 10 video
disk/chips...

All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a music disk hold
in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio and 10
video disks?
Message no. 5
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 08:50:42 +1000
Micheal Feeney writes:
> All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a
> music disk hold
> in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio and 10
> video disks?

This is defined in everyone's favourite OOP sourcebook, Shadowbeat. :)

IIRC, standard mini-CDs can pack about an hour and a bit of music on them.
Larger CDs can pack a full-length movie (three hours or there abouts),
converted to Trideo. (Presumably, it could take more of standard video).

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 6
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:10:38 -0400
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 06:41 PM 9/16/98 -0400, Micheal wrote:
>All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a music
disk hold
>in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio
and 10
>video disks?

The data storage requirements for "Normal Spectrum Sound" is 1 Mp per
minute. Normal Spectrum is described as the low quality format that no
one ever uses for recording music anymore; everyone uses Extended
Spectrum. Even with that, I imagine that "Normal Spectrum" is still
several levels above CD quality audio. For century old music recorded
before the dawn of digital audio, there could probably be a better
storage compression rate, perhaps 1 Mp for every five or even maybe
ten minutes. Since that'd be up to the GM, I'll just stick to the
cannon numbers for these examples.

Shadowrun's disk media (honest, there is still disk media in SR) the
Recordable High-Density Double-Sided MiniCD, holds 500 Mp of
information. This is 8 hours and 20 minutes worth of Normal Spectrum
audio, in a form factor, that at 6 cm in diameter, is half the size of
today's Compact Discs and DVDs.
(Extended Spectrum Audio, which, in SR, is what contemporary music
recordings are made in, takes 3 Mp per minute, which still leaves
space for 2 hours and 45 minutes on one disc)

The listing for High Resolution Video is also 1 Mp per minute. This
number seems a bit suspect to me, since that's the same rate that
Normal Spectrum Sound records at. As a GM, I rule that the stat is
just for the video, with no audio. If you want audio and video, I
charge you 2Mp per minute. As above though, what's low quality circa
2050 is still probably much better than our current
HDTV/DigitalTV/whatever-they're-calling-it-this-year; older analog
video probably gets better compression.

Connsidering the cannonical numbers as a starting point though, you're
looking at, at the least, about 4 hours per disk, and possibly much
more than that if you allow the poorer quality of century old video to
take less storage space. For example, if you allow Analog NTSC to be
stored in just 1/5th the space, you could fit the entire run of
Classic Star Trek on to a 4 disc set.

As for how much you can fit on a chip, every other place in SR, that's
limited mainly by nuyen. I've been looking at the numbers, and even
though all three editions of the BBB list the prices of both audio and
video discs and chips at a flat twenty nuyen, I just can't see how
those numbers line up with chip prices listed in other areas. These
chips could either be Optical Memory Chips, or Optical Code Chips, but
neither of those media are cheap. OMC runs 5 nuyen per Mp, and an OCC
blank runs 20 nuyen per Mp. I don't have an easy answer for this one,
unfortunately, short of houseruling in a third type of chip-based
medium.


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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 7
From: "D. Ghost" <dghost@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 23:49:30 -0500
On Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:10:38 -0400 Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
writes:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>At 06:41 PM 9/16/98 -0400, Micheal wrote:
>>All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a music
disk hold
>>in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio and
10
>>video disks?

<SNIP>
>As for how much you can fit on a chip, every other place in SR, that's
>limited mainly by nuyen. I've been looking at the numbers, and even
>though all three editions of the BBB list the prices of both audio and
>video discs and chips at a flat twenty nuyen, I just can't see how
>those numbers line up with chip prices listed in other areas. These
>chips could either be Optical Memory Chips, or Optical Code Chips, but
>neither of those media are cheap. OMC runs 5 nuyen per Mp, and an OCC
>blank runs 20 nuyen per Mp. I don't have an easy answer for this one,
>unfortunately, short of houseruling in a third type of chip-based
>medium.
<SNIP Sig>

Actually the cost for an OMC in Shadowbeat is .5 nuyen, not 5. That
means those 20 nuyen chips in the main book hold 40 Mp which equates to
40 minutes of Normal Spectrum Sound or High resolution video imaging, or
a little over 13 miuntes of Extended Spectrum Sound (So the Extended
Spectrum Sound remastering of Ina Gotta Da Vita [Sp?] is a two chip set
for one song?), or 8 minutes of Trideo Imaging, or 4 minutes of High
Resolution Trideo Imaging.

This is significantly lower than the HD/DS Mini Disc capacity. However,
the CDs are listed as having remarkably slower performance when compared
to an OMC and the above is for the standard OMC. OMCs are, according to
Shadowbeat, available at up 1000 GIGApulses (is that 1000 Mp or 1024
Mp?)! Of course, these monsters cost 500-512 THOUSAND nuyen (see
previous parenthetical querry for why there is a range of costs and not a
set cost.) With a chip of that size, I can't see how you wouldn't be
hard pressed to fill it...

D. Ghost
(aka Pixel, Tantrum, RuPixel)
o/` I traded my Flesh for a Fantasy and now my truck broke down, my wife
left me, and my dog died o/` -- Billy Idol, Jr. Rock Country Singer

_____________________________________________________________________
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Message no. 8
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:20:03 +0200
According to Micheal Feeney, at 18:41 on 16 Sep 98, the word on the street was...

> All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a music disk hold
> in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio and 10
> video disks?

HD-DS (High Density Double Sided) CDs hold 500 Mp, and one minute of
normal spectrum sound (I'd say this is equivalent to a cassette tape)
takes up 1 Mp per minute. So, your 10 audio disks can hold 5,000 minutes,
or 83-1/3 hours of music. If you want high-spectrum sound (equivalent to
modern CD-quality sound, probably) divide this by 3.

High-resolution video requires 1 Mp per minute as well, trideo 5
Mp/minute, and high-res trid is 10 Mp/minute. All this is from page 99 of
Shadowbeat.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Yeah, I left with nothing but the thought you'd be there too.
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 9
From: David Foster <fixer@*******.TLH.FL.US>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 08:25:53 -0400
On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Robert Watkins wrote:

->Micheal Feeney writes:
->> All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a
->> music disk hold
->> in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio and 10
->> video disks?
->
->This is defined in everyone's favourite OOP sourcebook, Shadowbeat. :)
->
->IIRC, standard mini-CDs can pack about an hour and a bit of music on them.
->Larger CDs can pack a full-length movie (three hours or there abouts),
->converted to Trideo. (Presumably, it could take more of standard video).

Wait, 3 hours = 180 minutes = 10800 seconds. According to
Shadowbeat, how many MPs per second does trideo footage take? Multiply
the MP/s rate by about 10,000 and you'll have, roughly, how big a Large CD
is in SR. The standard miniCDs should hold 3600 MPs (3600 seconds *
1MP/s) or so.
Yep, I'm glad one of the first SR books I ever bought was
Shadowbeat.. real handy, it is.

Fixer --------------} The easy I do before breakfast,
the difficult I do all day long,
the impossible only during the week,
and miracles performed on an as-needed basis....

Now tell me, what was your problem?
Message no. 10
From: David Foster <fixer@*******.TLH.FL.US>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 09:46:26 -0400
On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, David Foster wrote:

->On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Robert Watkins wrote:
->
->->Micheal Feeney writes:
->->> All of which comes down to the key question: How much does a
->->> music disk hold
->->> in 2060? In otherwords, how much stuff do I have on those 10 audio and 10
->->> video disks?
->->
->->This is defined in everyone's favourite OOP sourcebook, Shadowbeat. :)
->->
->->IIRC, standard mini-CDs can pack about an hour and a bit of music on them.
->->Larger CDs can pack a full-length movie (three hours or there abouts),
->->converted to Trideo. (Presumably, it could take more of standard video).
->
-> Wait, 3 hours = 180 minutes = 10800 seconds. According to
->Shadowbeat, how many MPs per second does trideo footage take? Multiply
->the MP/s rate by about 10,000 and you'll have, roughly, how big a Large CD
->is in SR. The standard miniCDs should hold 3600 MPs (3600 seconds *
->1MP/s) or so.
-> Yep, I'm glad one of the first SR books I ever bought was
->Shadowbeat.. real handy, it is.

No thwapping, I hadn't had my coffe before i posted that. Forget
I said it, etc.

Fixer --------------} The easy I do before breakfast,
the difficult I do all day long,
the impossible only during the week,
and miracles performed on an as-needed basis....

Now tell me, what was your problem?
Message no. 11
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 11:26:05 -0400
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 11:49 PM 9/16/98 -0500, D.Ghost wrote:
>Actually the cost for an OMC in Shadowbeat is .5 nuyen, not 5.

And the cost for OMC in the BBB3 is 5 nuyen per, not .5 per; newer
books do take precidence, correct? :)
(I'll go ahead and flag this as an SR3 erratta in a seperate post, I
honestly can't see a 10,000.00% increase in price for this item.)

>means those 20 nuyen chips in the main book hold 40 Mp

Only if you assume that the price the music and video industries is
charging you covers only the price of the recording medium, and
they're not actually making a profit on any of the titles they're
selling. If they're not making a profit though, how can they stay in
buisness? (This is a bit of an oversimplification of course: in the
bulk quantities of chip blanks that the recording industry would be
buying them at, the would most likely be paying less than .5Y/Mp, but
there's still not much room for profit there.)

>40 minutes of Normal Spectrum Sound
Note that no "modern" music recording in Shadowrun uses mere Normal
Spectrum, it's just not considered high enough quality.

>a little over 13 miuntes of Extended Spectrum Sound
Ouch. This is a bit short for a comercial release, at least one that
sells for 20Y.

>8 minutes of Trideo Imaging,
>4 minutes of High Resolution Trideo Imaging.
And people pay 20Y for these things?

>This is significantly lower than the HD/DS Mini Disc capacity.
However,
>the CDs are listed as having remarkably slower performance when
compared
>to an OMC

It'd have to be painfully slow in my opinion (with seek times measured
in tens of seconds) for anyone to even consider OMC as a reasonable
alternate, even at Shadowbeat's lower price of 0.5Y/Mp. Remember, the
times listed above, 13 minutes of music and 8 minutes of trideo are
arived at if only if you assume the recording industry is charging you
just for the OMCs themselves (never mind paying the artists for their
creative efforts) and is making zero profit per unit.

I'm going to put in a vote for a new optical chip type for music and
video. OMC is just too expensive. BBB1 refered to Optical Chip
HardBoxes, but never went into detail about them. I'd give them a
formfactor of 1cm X 2.5cm X 3.5cm, and a bit more rugged than an OMC
(you can step on a OC HardBox, just not with your boots on).

I'd give them the capacity to store 4 hours of (extended spectrum)
music, 2 hours of Trideo, or 1 hour of High Resolution Trideo. For you
nostalgia buffs out there, I'd say it'd hold 6 hours of Hi-Res Video,
(or 30 hours of anchient analog NTSC video), and 12 hours of nomral
spectrum sound (or 60 hours worth of pre-digital recording era audio).


Commercially made recordings may be copy protected, much the same way
Optical Code Chips are, however, if you have any form of matrix
access, you may buy a single use passcode that'll unlock the copy
protection to allow one copy to be made, for about 1Y-5Y. Blank OC
HardBoxes may be bought at a price of 15 nuyen (though the recording
industry only pays one-third as much as the consumer-level price.) One
important disclaimer: OC HardBoxes use specialized compression
routienes specifically optimized for audio and video storage, and are
entirely unsuited for storing any other form of data.


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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 12
From: "D. Ghost" <dghost@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 18:34:47 -0500
On Thu, 17 Sep 1998 11:26:05 -0400 Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
writes:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>At 11:49 PM 9/16/98 -0500, D.Ghost wrote:
>>Actually the cost for an OMC in Shadowbeat is .5 nuyen, not 5.

>And the cost for OMC in the BBB3 is 5 nuyen per, not .5 per; newer
>books do take precidence, correct? :)
>(I'll go ahead and flag this as an SR3 erratta in a seperate post, I
>honestly can't see a 10,000.00% increase in price for this item.)

Yes, I noticed that. I should have made a note that I was using
Shadowbeat's prices because I was projecting the best case scenario I
could officially manage. (See below.)

>>means those 20 nuyen chips in the main book hold 40 Mp

>Only if you assume that the price the music and video industries is
>charging you covers only the price of the recording medium, and
>they're not actually making a profit on any of the titles they're
>selling. If they're not making a profit though, how can they stay in
>buisness? (This is a bit of an oversimplification of course: in the
>bulk quantities of chip blanks that the recording industry would be
>buying them at, the would most likely be paying less than .5Y/Mp, but
>there's still not much room for profit there.)

You seem to be forgetting something. That is the price for a blank OMC
that a character buys. What would the music industry pay per MP when
they make their own chips and/or order OMCs by the billions or even
trillions? On the lower end of the corp ladder, the discount should be
balanced out with artist fees and profit allocations. On the higher end,
It is possible that you'll see more MP for the same price IF the execs
think it is neccissary. Otherwise, the extra discount will be absorbed
into the corp's profit margine.

<SNIP>
>>8 minutes of Trideo Imaging,
>>4 minutes of High Resolution Trideo Imaging.

>And people pay 20Y for these things?

Here's a bizare idea: what if the OMCs include advertising to pay for the
extra MP? How much of the population in 2060 would be too lazy to fast
forward through it?

<SNIP>

I, personally, am just going to chalk OMC prices to mass distribution of
goods and give the standard, pre-recorded, non-rewritable version that
standard music, video, and trideo is distributed on (This is a house
ruling about the nature of the media used for distribution, not something
out of Shadowbeat.) have 180 MPs of available space. From there, every
additional 180 Mps (or fraction there of) up to 1000 GPs increases the
price by 20 nuyen.

That means for 20 nuyen, you can get:
3 hours of high-resolution video imaging or normal spectrum sound;
1 hour of Extended video imaging;
36 minutes of trideo imaging; or
18 minutes of high-resolution trideo imaging.

Do these numbers sound better?

D. Ghost
(aka Pixel, Tantrum, RuPixel)
o/` I traded my Flesh for a Fantasy and now my truck broke down, my wife
left me, and my dog died o/` -- Billy Idol, Jr. Rock Country Singer

_____________________________________________________________________
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Message no. 13
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Data Storage
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 19:14:22 -0400
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 06:34 PM 9/17/98 -0500, D.Ghost wrote:
>>buisness? (This is a bit of an oversimplification of course: in the
>>bulk quantities of chip blanks that the recording industry would be
>>buying them at, the would most likely be paying less than .5Y/Mp,
but
>>there's still not much room for profit there.)
>
>You seem to be forgetting something. That is the price for a blank
OMC
>that a character buys. What would the music industry pay per MP when
>they make their own chips and/or order OMCs by the billions or even
>trillions?

I direct you to the part of my post where I state "This is a bit of an
oversimplification... they would most likely be paying less than
.5Y/Mp." :)

<<Snip>>

<<Snip part about D.Ghost's house rule where prerecorded music/video
chips can store 180Mp>>

>That means for 20 nuyen, you can get:
>3 hours of high-resolution video imaging or normal spectrum sound;
>1 hour of Extended Spectrum Sound;
>36 minutes of trideo imaging; or
>18 minutes of high-resolution trideo imaging.
>
>Do these numbers sound better?

Only a half hour of Trid? In the words of Max Headroom: "And I thought
Network 23 was cramped for space."

Call me a bit old fasioned, but I still think that Trideo Movie sales
would be big, at least among the lower classes who can't afford
simsense (though the rental market has been likely replaced by
pay-per-view trideo-on-demand). And seeing how most movies run at
least 90 minutes, if you're charging 20Y per chip, that's 60Y to buy a
short 3 chip movie. I suppose it works just fine in your game, but in
mine, I think I'm going to go with the numbers I houseruled up with
for Optical Chip HardBoxes. (except maybe the size. I think I'm going
to go with 1.2cm X 3cm X 5cm instead)

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 14
From: Chris Hubble chris.hubble@************.com
Subject: Data storage
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 10:59:03 -0400
What kind of data storage is used in SR? I don't have my books handy(loaned
'em to a friend), so I can't look it up. I remember reading something 'bout
using optical chips, but that's all I remember.

Chris
Message no. 15
From: GMPax@***.com GMPax@***.com
Subject: Data storage
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 13:44:30 EDT
In a message dated 4/7/99 11:14:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
chris.hubble@************.com writes:

<< What kind of data storage is used in SR? I don't have my books
handy(loaned
'em to a friend), so I can't look it up. I remember reading something 'bout
using optical chips, but that's all I remember.

Chris >>

PEr Shadowtech (IIRC), data storage is on matrices of Crystal, in which a
chemical (based on a protien found in a form of algae, IIRC) is stored.

Thie is a two-state chemical: it's either green, or red. With the proper
array of lasers, data can be read by seeing when the red laser is blocked ...
and changed, by intputting enough light energy (of the propr color) to CHANGE
the state of that particular cel within the matrix of the datachip.

Essentially, optical data storage, using as much BIOTECH as anything else. :-)

Or at least, that's the understanding I had gotten from the books ...

Sean
GM Pax
Message no. 16
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Data storage
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 20:05:03 +0200
According to Chris Hubble, at 10:59 on 7 Apr 99, the word on
the street was...

> What kind of data storage is used in SR? I don't have my books handy(loaned
> 'em to a friend), so I can't look it up. I remember reading something 'bout
> using optical chips, but that's all I remember.

You remembered correctly. SR uses optical chips which have what are
essentially optical transistors, with a green and a red state that can be
used to store data. This is in Shadowtech.

--
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Further Reading

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