ADF - Now with Robots!
- by Duncan Mills
I mentioned this briefly in a tweet the other day, just before the full rush of OOW really kicked off, so I though it was worth re-visiting. Check out this video, and then read on:
So why so interesting? Well - you probably guessed from the title, ADF is involved. Indeed this is as about as far from the traditional ADF data entry application as you can get. Instead of a database at the back-end there's basically a robot. That's right, this remarkable tape drive is controlled through an ADF using all your usual friends of ADF Faces, Controller and Binding (but no ADFBC for obvious reasons). ADF is used both on the touch screen you see on the front of the device in the video, and also for the remote management console which provides a visual representation of the slots and drives. The latter uses ADF's Active Data Framework to provide a real-time view of what's going on the rack.
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What's even more interesting (for the techno-geeks) is the fact that all of this is running out of flash storage on a ridiculously small form factor with tiny processor - I probably shouldn't reveal the actual specs but take my word for it, don't complain about the capabilities of your laptop ever again!
This is a project that I've been personally involved in and I'm pumped to see such a good result and, I have to say, those hardware guys are great to work with (and have way better toys on their desks than we do).
More info in the SL150 (should you feel the urge to own one) is here.
