Storage media lab ready.

MEDIA LAB 20 · STORAGE + PLAYER EXPERIENCE

HOW GAMES FIT
AND LOAD

Put cartridges, discs, hard drives, game cards, and an SSD on the same museum bench. Compare what each one can hold, how quickly it can deliver an example, and what the player actually sees.

01 · MEDIA SHELF

Pick two to four objects for the race

4 / 4 SELECTED

Select an object to compare it and make it the current player-experience example. CD, DVD, and Blu-ray keep the same disc silhouette on purpose.

02 · CAPACITY WALL

Four kilobytes to one terabyte

LOGARITHMIC SCALE
EARLY ROM4 KB
950,000×
BANKED ROM32 KB
118,750×
FLOPPY1.44 MB
2,639×
CD-ROM650 MB
6×
DVD-ROM4.7 GB
FITS
XBOX HDD8 GB
FITS
BLU-RAY25 GB
FITS
GAME CARD32 GB
FITS
HDD1 TB
FITS
NVME SSD1 TB
FITS

Triangle marker: 3.8 GB game. Horizontal distance is logarithmic, so every major step represents much more data than the one before it.

03 · LOAD RACE

Choose a scenario, predict, then reveal

LOAD TRACK
TOTAL GAME3.8 GB game
DATA NEEDED NOW200 MB track

Compare a DVD read with an internal cache and newer local storage.

01
DVD-ROMDENSER TRACK · 5.5 MB/s
36.5 s
0% VISUAL

200 MB track at 5.5 MB/s plus start or seek delay.

02
XBOX HDDCACHE + SEEK · 20 MB/s
10 s
0% VISUAL

200 MB track at 20 MB/s plus start or seek delay.

03
HDDPLATTER + HEAD · 120 MB/s
1.68 s
0% VISUAL

200 MB track at 120 MB/s plus start or seek delay.

04
NVME SSDFLASH + PCIE · 3,500 MB/s
57 ms
0% VISUAL

200 MB track at 3,500 MB/s plus start or seek delay.

The animation compresses long waits logarithmically; the printed time is the comparison. Formula: start or seek delay + data needed now ÷ representative read rate. A game must fit before it can race.

04 · PLAYER EXPERIENCE

Storage becomes something the player sees

WHERE THE GAME LIVES650 MBOPTICAL · 1994
HOW DATA MOVES
READ FROM REMOVABLE MEDIALASER + TRACK · 0.3 MB/s
WHAT THE PLAYER SEES
LOAD TRACKMEDIA SWAP / IMPOSSIBLE FIT
6 PIECES NEEDED

Hundreds of megabytes enable recorded audio and video, while seeking and reading often produce a dedicated loading screen.

05 · MEDIA TIMELINE

The object changes; the wait changes differently

1977 → TODAY
1977EARLY ROM4 KB

MEMORY-MAPPED

1985BANKED ROM32 KB

BANK WINDOW

1987FLOPPY1.44 MB

SPIN + SEEK

1994CD-ROM650 MB

LASER + TRACK

2000DVD-ROM4.7 GB

DENSER TRACK

2001XBOX HDD8 GB

CACHE + SEEK

2006BLU-RAY25 GB

BLUE LASER

2013HDD1 TB

PLATTER + HEAD

2017GAME CARD32 GB

FLASH BLOCKS

2020NVME SSD1 TB

FLASH + PCIE

2024100 MBIT/SREMOTE LIBRARY

PACKETS → LOCAL

06 · CURATOR CHALLENGE

Choose the least overpowered match

0 / 4 SOLVED
MISSION 01

Instant classic

Ship a complete 4 KB game on removable 1970s hardware with essentially no bulk-loading screen.