The Silicon Jungle by David H. Rothman

okay up to around 100 megabytes or so, and you can set the VCR timer to “watch television” off the Winchester at night when you’re not using it. “Interesting,” you say, “but how about the lap-sized portable I’m considering? How do I protect the information inside that?” The best way, of course, is not to lose the memory and the rest of the portable; as a well-practiced raincoat forgetter, I’ll never be the ideal owner of a lap-sized portable. Common sense, too, suggests that you not store a lap-size portable inside a car with the sun blazing down—bad news for heat-sensitive chips and other parts. If your portable uses a =bubble memory=, your data-security problems are milder in some respects than with other kinds. The bubbles are tiny magnetized areas inside a small metal container. Magnetized “north,” a bubble might mean a bit specifying “one.” Magnetized “south,” it could mean zero. (You’ll recall that bits form a byte standing for a letter or number.) Magnetic bubble memories aren’t that much faster than disks, but they _keep_ remembering forever—unlike the CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) RAMs used in many portables. An RAM will develop amnesia if your power fails, and a CMOS RAM is no different. It’s just that the CMOS keeps the power requirements extralow so small batteries can dribble out the needed juice after you’ve “officially” switched your machine off. This “hibernation” may last weeks or months. (Check your instruction manual.) You’re in great shape, however, only as long as your batteries are; the Eveready commercials may talk of nine lives, but your data may have only one. Someday your care may count more than ever. Low-cost CMOS RAMs may eventually store thousands of pages on one chip; and power failure might not be the only risk. Imagine. You can tap out a chapter of your 1,000-page great American novel some bitter winter night, lazing on the rug by your fireplace. Your lover is stroking your back and—ZAP! Since CMOS RAMs are such low-voltages devices, think what thousands of volts from static can do. Here’s one solution to the portables’ static problems. Before computing, you might discharge yourself on a nearby vent or anything else that’s grounded. You can also spray your home and office rugs with Static Guard or its equivalent. And you also can use a static mat—cheap at your local computer store—if the zaps persist. What about a plane thirty thousand feet up? Then you might try discharging yourself against a metal ashtray before using your portable. If it’s all plastic, with no metal parts, by the way, your risks are much less than otherwise. But they’re still there. Whatever style portable you’re using, remember the importance of backups—however inconvenient or costly. Through a cable called a =null modem=, you can pipe valuable reports from your portable to a larger computer a few feet away. You may want to do this, anyhow. Your lap-sized computer simply may run out of storage room much more quickly than a bigger machine and may lack floppy disks to spread those bits and bytes around. So make sure your portable software lets you zip material back and forth between machines. “And in the field? What backup technique, then?” Well, you’re often stuck with slow, tape-style storage. And mini-disk drives may be expensive and take up room if they’re not already in your portable. But why not see if your company will let you send valuable reports over the phone for temporary storage in its big computer? You can also stash them away inside a desktop computer hooked up to the portable the same way. And there’s yet another answer. Rent electronic storage space on a commercial computer network like The Source of CompuServe. In the future, maybe computer memories—on little portables and desktops alike—won’t be so temperamental. Perhaps there will be superreliable CMOS RAMs. Or how about practical, low-cost disks that you use lasers to “read” and “write” on? Dreams, dreams! Meanwhile, most of us struggle along with floppies and must keep thinking, Backup! Handle carefully! Clean! Maintain! and How often? In summary, keep asking yourself: