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: