Mention magnetics and an image arises of musty physics labs peopled by old codgers with iron filings under their fingernails—good science, this, but not the stuff from which career dreams are spun. Yes, you say, but what about the giant magnetic recording industry—it's still healthy, isn't it? Not according to some. The popular press has made statements about magnetic recording being a technology that has reached its maturity and has limited growth potential. Aficionados of semiconductor memory even advised a few years ago that memory cards based on semiconductor technology would become price competitive with magnetic hard‐disk drives by 1995. This prediction has fallen short by two orders of magnitude.