Rock data storage that we use for computers is a bunch of on off switches whose physical arrangement in any given space isn't of consequence. What if we took that vast array of information, the physical shapes that these on / off switches created and noted that as an information storage medium?

For example, say we've got a million silicon twinklers and switch them such that they say "Howdy!" but each has a physical map, then we put that same array of switches into the shape of a 3D puppy smiling. Then take that same message and have the puppy bark by animating it. Basically have it reconfiguring a 3D physical map at the same time the rocks are heating up and cooling off? It may not be infinitely more storage for that amount of ground up rocks, but sure moves in that direction.

I know physical placement is a factor in bio-data storage, what if we looked into that for our Stonehenge style computing?

So one way to add the 3 dimensional thing is each bit of data would be treated as a 3D map point. This could be discerned by a measurement of how long it took for the electric signal to get back and forth, a measurement of the whole shape like in an MRI machine or any other number of methods. Each bit could be variable in its storage of charge rather than just on off. Heat signatures, even time from morphing from one shape into another. Yea, a forth dimension. 4 dimension morphological storage.

I'll add that silicon based data storage should be called the Stonehenge system because I think we'll look back at non-bio data storage someday and say "That was actually pretty clever considering how stupid we were back then."

Anyway, to be clear, add the multiple dimensions of the physical layer storage grid to the information data set to get an almost infinite additional amount of information for the same amount of hot/cool rocks.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025

Ternary vs binary as an example of opening up the medium. https://www.youtube...watch?v=R4achTEgXEw
[doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025]

Operation Robo Bee, whatever. Operation_20Robo_20Bee
[doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025]

information storage plus one information_20storage_20_2b1
[Voice, Sep 10 2025]

//Anyway, to be clear, add the multiple dimensions of the physical layer storage grid to the information data set to get an almost infinite additional amount of information for the same amount of hot/cool rocks.//

Could you be clearer than that?
-- Loris, Sep 09 2025


Maybe the name needs to be clearer, because reading this myself I'm thinking "I would have no idea what this guy's talking about." Maybe the name needs to give a better insight into the idea so I'll try "four dimensional morphological data storage".

Okay, your on off switches are now variable, this could be done in a number of ways, that's one layer of data added then their physical arrangement respective to each other is another data set. Think of them as pixels or more accurately, one of those 3D lit up drone displays at night.

So you'd take the on/off bit arrangement of a book, say War And Peace, the worst book ever written according to me trying to get through the first five pages, and vary where those bits are arranged morpholically if that's a work. While the dumb book is getting expressed the physical arrangement of that blathering at the current data layer is morphing, changing shape, flashing in and out of various levels of charge for each bit of information. The bits that say "It was the best of times" (that might be another book, don't remember, don't care) forms video of a coyote punching a roadrunner on a skateboard.

The morphing of the shapes, times for changes, even sounds generated (adding that layer) are all additional data elements for the same amount of space.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025


If your 'switches' are either 'on' or 'off', then each carries one bit of information. If you want to store extra information together with each one, you need to store that along with the bit itself. I am not clear how this improves... well, anything, really.

If you're interested in how a series of bits affects the following bits, you should read up on Markov chains.
-- Loris, Sep 09 2025


Well you could say that with the on/off status too couldn't you? How are you gonna know if it's on or off?

Forget about electricity, store your information on a checkerboard with coins that are either heads or tails.

First, have a bunch of coins on the table that are either heads or tails, that's how your storing this one data thingy. Okay, simple. No Markov chain needed.

Now add another layer of data by putting those coins on a checkerboard. That's another set of data. No electricity, really simple.

Now stack those head or tails configured coins on that checkerboard. There's another layer literally and figuratively.

Let's change their size now and have a graphic representation of where all the coins that are one inch are, where the half inch coins are.

Assuming you could heat or cool them in such a way that they'd stay that temperature, let's put that information in.

We've exponentially added the amount of data we can get from each configuration with each additional aspect we've modulated.

Now for comparison, let wave a magic wand and just have these coins be binary state indicators, on or off. How much information did we just throw away with the same amount of physical space being used?

And that's what I'm talking about, data storage is a physical space thing and our current way to store data compared to say, an ant's brain is really horrible. We'll eventually moving into bio based data storage but in the meantime this is a way to stack the rocks such that we can get a little more out of them.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025


All information storage requires a physical state. How you encode the information is up to you.

The storage density of a medium is how much 'stuff' you need per unit data (usually measured in bits).
Modern technology is getting increasingly good at using as little stuff per bit as possible, and in practice it seems that currently, doing things in one way really really efficiently beats out several distinct inefficient ways all sharing the same stuff.
It's possible that when we hit the limits of that optimisation, that will change - but my guess is that if so, it would be in some disappointing way which only barely fits that criterion, like putting a marker in one of more than two positions.
-- Loris, Sep 09 2025


Well, even this is a discussion about how to improve typesetting machines right before the advent of laser and inkjet printers. Biodata storage is the future. Stonehenge data storage is on its last legs. That might be decades or even a century away but we're not gonna be using zapped rocks at some point in the future. They'll go the way of the telegraph and the smoke signal.

And might even be a crossover between bio and inert. Zombie medium, neither alive nor dead but somewhere in between. Dunno. Should be interesting though.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025


//Biodata storage is the future.//

People have investigated using DNA to store data, is that the sort of thing you mean?
I believe the general idea there is to leverage the known stability of DNA, and the burgeoning sequencing and polynucleotide synthesis technologies to create long-term, rarely accessed archives of data with a very low maintenance costs. I don't think it's likely to replace RAM.
-- Loris, Sep 09 2025


I'm just looking out there in the wild to see how they do it. Don't have the answers, just know that's probably where we should be looking, at least for a start. However they, them, or it is managing their data they're kicking our butts so I'm assuming we should be behind them looking over their shoulder during that exam coming up because that's who we should be copying, not slogging down this path of bigger, hotter and more highly stacked abacususus. Abaci? Whatever the plural of abacus is. See operation honey bee. (link)
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 09 2025


So data can be stored in arrays and stacked in usb cards and such. Storage media could theoretically be non-binary but conversions become a thing, and the technology is now no longer a silicon chip but something else.

I guess I suggest reading up more on how the tech currently works in order to better describe what you mean. Are you working towards analog computers? Maybe op-amps? Those both exist.
-- RayfordSteele, Sep 10 2025


Thanks, I'll read up on how the technology currently works. Appreciate your input.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 10 2025


I'm thinking this is already a thing, in that physical storage on a magnetic substrate or silicon memory chip is abstracted by the computer OS so as to appear immaterial. But the control software that feeds the data to and from the OS is very much dealing with the physical location of the 1s and 0s in sectors or blocks etc. and uses it's own hidden software to manage that. The physical location of blocks of data itself is stored in this hidden system, so that manipulating the physical locations as suggested here will simply require an equal (or greater) amount of such hidden storage than the extra data being stored.

On the ant thing, yes the ant brain is much more efficient than a spinning disc at data storage and retrieval, but this is because it is optimised for storing ant stuff. I think that using an ant brain for storing your address book or bitcoin private keys or the backups of your studio recording session is probably a lot less efficient than storing them on a micro SD card. On the other hand if you want to store the route between two dishes of honey, then yes ant brains win hands down.

Perhaps we need to think in terms of emulation, such that any data set can be encoded in dishes of honey placed in a woodland.
-- pocmloc, Sep 10 2025


Exactly! I’d approach this the same way approached finding out what those bright flashes of light in the sky were or that little spark when we reached for a door handle. 1- Observation, 2- emulation, 3- modifications and finally, 4- application. Once we can exactly apply scientific method by having reproducible results, “Ok, made an ant brain from scratch” we start doing the “If I can ___, does it mean that I can take the next step and___?
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 10 2025


If I can <make an ant brain>, does it mean that I can take the next step and <find the honey>?

There may be easier and less resource-intensive ways of finding the honey than constructing an ant brain.
-- pocmloc, Sep 10 2025


I'd set my sights a little higher. Like tweaking it to find other compounds, maybe train it to sniff out fluorine for use in nuclear power plants and semi conductor manufacturing. Train a million of them to go out and come back with where the stuff can be mined. Then do that bee dance to specify the location.

But endgame picture is having a data center big enough to power whole countries in a medium sized warehouse powered by solar panels on the roof. Plus since you're growing them in petri dishes they build themselves basically.

Oh yea, and finally do the whole, create life out of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus etc. thing. Do that we can call it a day.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 10 2025


I did that. Twice. Results were fair to middling. Initialization was fun, but O/S upload is taking a fair bit of time.
-- RayfordSteele, Sep 12 2025



random, halfbakery