Digital/analog recording using near field optical imaging

摘要

A data storage product and method of making the storage product wherein a digital and analog image may be stored thereon. The storage product (5) includes a photosensitive layer that contains a plurality of near-field optical images (10) recorded as data bits (19) in a digital data stream (20). The data bits are of such a size that they can be read digitally and by analog means. The figure illustrates one of the images (10) that forms the data stream (20) where the data stream (20) is actually the same image as that recorded digitally. The mixed mode storage system provides an archival image storage with retrieval means independent of a particular digital storage format specification, while requiring less space than conventional image storage means.