3 ms·
"Like the Ministry of Truth, it appears that Apple is deliberately attempting to usurp the meaning of the word Flash in the computing industry and redefine it."
by bradleyland 16y ago
"Like the Ministry of Truth, it appears that Apple is deliberately attempting to usurp the meaning of the word Flash in the computing industry and redefine it."
Were Apple attempting to bring new meaning to the term flash this would be (at best) a passable assertion. However, the term "flash" has been used to refer to silicon-based NOR and NAND memory since the beginning. I don't know the exact date, but I know it was around in the early nineties ('91-'92) when I started messing with computers.
Macromedia Flash didn't come in to existence until the late nineties, and I'm certain that flash memory existed for a long time before I was even aware of it. That means flash memory easily pre-dates Adobe Flash by a wide margin.
- loupgarou21 16y agoAt least with the people I work with, the term "flash" is used to refer to the Adobe product. When we're talking about flash memory we use a variety of other terms, but not simply "flash."
- jonhendry 16y agoJobs wasn't talking at your workplace. So what you talk about with your coworkers is kind of irrelevant. In the context of an Apple quarterly performance conference call, Flash RAM is arguably the more relevant sense, since so much of Apple's product line uses it and thus it plays a major role in Apple's business. The person posing the question failed to specify, allowing Jobs to deflect the question by choosing the meaning most convenient.