Using 1,454,942 maximum size and minimum error correction QR codes in alphanumeric mode (byte mode is a lie) to store Base64-encoded binary data, you get roughly 4,687,823,124 bytes. 4.6 GB. If the cards are two-sided we get 9.2 GB.
Minimum size of Windows 11 installer image seems to be 8 GB, so it checks out!
Why Base64? QR codes can contain pure binary data, no need to use this inefficient, not-error-correcting 6-to-8 encoding.
Oh, I forgot Microsoft does not care jack shit about saving people’s computing resources. However, Windows 9x installers on floppies used custom formatting except the first bootable one, allowing them to fit nearly 2 MB of useful data per floppy.
They can contain binary data, but less of it. Not sure of the details, but you get 3k bytes if binary data or 4.2k alphanumeric letters. So no big difference all in all, which is a bit silly.
Also, many QR scanners can’t handle binary data and freak out on null values or newlines.
We must consider the practical side of installing Windows 11 from a semitrailer load of cardboard.
The alphanumeric mode does not support lowercase though, it has 5.5 bits/char (pairs of characters are encoded as a base-44 numbers in 11 bits).
Well, here I go printing 1244 pages of QR codes to store tinycorelinux for the after times.
Nice!
Though if they were double sided, there is no way we can see all these cards in the same shot. If it starts at odd numbers (i.e. #1), #3 and #4 would share the same card front and back, if it starts even (i.e. a cover graphic and #1 on the same card), #4 and #5 should share the same card front and back.
Card#1, Card#1 back, Card#2, Card#2 back, etc is what you need to get 9GB out of the 1,454,492 card numbers indicated. :)
So that would be installing from…
Puts on sunglasses
Optical media?
YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHH!
KolibriOS, arguably the smallest modern GUI OS at 1.44MB, could be encoded on ~142 of them. I shouldn’t find that interesting but I do. MikeOS, which is an operating system used to teach about OS design, could fit on ~74.
Making this a very dumb very impractical but nonetheless legitimately viable method for non-electromagnetic OS storage.
You might enjoy this: https://youtu.be/ExwqNreocpg
Lol, i use qrencode for years in a tiny little function to display URL in the image viewer.
Btw, Unixes used lf, Mac decided on cr, and that’s why MS used cr lf, for compatibility. Did i remember that right?
I think I knew the answer to that last question about twenty years ago, but I can’t answer it with any guaranteed accuracy now, sorry.
Actually … I thought it was carriage return (emulate sending the typewriter carriage back to the starting position), line feed (emulate typewriter moving paper up by one line). Or, to put it another way: ding!
For those wondering, when using the biggest QR code with the maximum error correction (10,208 bytes), 1,454,942 QR codes is slightly less than 14GiB, which should be more than enough for a Windows ISO.
My math: (1454942×10208)÷1024÷1024÷1024≈13.83
Edit: Damn another guy beat me to it, now I wonder how I’m so far off.
Because the other comment had a useless counterproductive step in it, namely base64.
Maybe, but also I think I was looking at the raw ‘data bits’, not ‘binary’ data. It’s actually almost exactly 4GiB, even when dropping down to minimum error correction (1.7 GiB otherwise).
(1454942×2953)÷1024÷1024÷1024≈4.00
Edit: So if alphanumeric mode could store lowercase letters, base64 would’ve stored more.
The only thing that would top this would be using punch cards. I think that’d be around 58 million punch cards for Win11.
Windows 11 laptops are required to have a webcam but not a punch card reader. (Bummer, right?)
Seriously?
Will it know it’s a laptop and not a desktop and not let me install if there is not a webcam?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory
Some back of the napkin math says that would take about 70833 ft^3 to store the Win 11 installer. Thats a cube that is about 41ft long on each side. It’s approximately 18.5 semi truck trailers of memory.
