History Main / DataCrystal

** Actually, the whole fortress was "stored" in the green crystal that was placed in Kal-El's rocket and costructed itself out of ice when the crystal was thrown into the arctic landscape.

* WilliamGibson reportedly thought that computer chips actually looked like this. Back in TheEighties!

[[caption-width-right:300:Today, flash drives. Tomorrow, precious gems!]]

* In ''TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'', the hard drives of the HAL 9000 computer are shown as blocks of clear crystal/glass. Astronaut David Bowman manually ejects them from their drive bays in order to disable HAL.

* ''StarWars'' has holocron crystals.

* ''{{Series/Farscape}}'', too, had data crystals in several episodes, most notably the navigation crystal in "DNA Mad Scientist."

* ''{{Series/Tracker}}'' had this, they were maps stored on crystals. The first one got left behind at an alien-theme restaurant after a fight, but Cole found the second one hidden in a stored museum piece. They were maps of the Lake Michigan area to show the way to the DoomsdayDevice hidden under the Watchfire bar.

* ''StarCraft'', the Protoss are an almost literal CrystalSpiresAndTogas society and use crystals as power sources and to store their thoughts and knowledge on. The Warp Prism transport in the sequel is actually described as a crystal ''computer'', able to scan lifeforms and machines, convert them to energy and store the data in its databanks, then reconfigure them from energy back into matter.

* ''EightBitTheatre'' has Dataspheres, which look like cubes. According to Red Mage, one has enough information to overflow the entire universe and possibly drive anyone who looks into it mad.

* ''BuckGodotZapGunForHire'' has "[[http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20090224 info points]]", though it's considered quaint.

* [[http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Data_crystal Data Crystals are a popular]] intergalactic standard in ''[[BabylonFive Babylon 5]].''

TruthInTelevision with the fact that deep inside all of the non-crystal cladding, all solid state devices are based on crystalline semi-conductors.

** In fact the holy grail of chip makers is being able to replace the silicon with diamond, which can withstand temperatures far beyond the point that silicon puffs into BlueSmoke.

* In post ''ComicBoook/InfiniteCrisis'' ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' stories, Superman's Fortress of Solitude uses sunstone crystals to work his computer. This was taken from the ''Superman'' films (see below).

* "Ar tonelico" has Hymn Crystals, which allows for songs (which are used as "magic" in the game) to be stored and later downloaded into Reyvateils.

* In ''SupermanII'', Superman's Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole had a system that stored information on crystals.

* A major {{MacGuffin}} in ''BattleAngelAlita: Last Order'' is an ancient computer program encoded on a crystal.

* ''{{Shadowrun}}''. Information can stored on optical crystals ("chips"). This includes cyberdeck components.

* ''WesternAnimation/ShadowRaiders'' has the alliance control their Battle Moons (and all of their fleet) with crystal keys with the security codes.

* Shows up occasionally in ''StarTrek'', primarily in later ''[[StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]]'', ''[[StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]]'', and ''[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]''.
** From ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', [[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Isolinear_Chips.jpg Isolinear Optical Chips]] may represent a "missing link" between data crystals and more traditional electronics.

* ''{{Farscape}}'', too, had data crystals in several episodes, most notably the navigation crystal in "DNA Mad Scientist."

* ''Starblazer Adventures'', based on the 1980's British ComicBook. The Random Key Items/Target of Objective random table lists Data Crystals as a possible target for a mission.

Rather than use magnetic, optical, flash drive or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive solid-state drive]] based information storage mediums, in the future there will be ways to read and write data onto transparent crystaline solids. The crystals may be shaped like quartz, techno {{Crystal Ball}}s or as diamond or gem cut jewelry.

* The ''WildCards'' series. One of the characters is Jube the Walrus. As an agent of the interstellar trading consortium known as the Network, he has advance technological devices such as recording crystals that can store information.

[[caption-width-right:300:Well, maybe a ''little'' more advanced...]]

[[quoteright:300:[[http://www.omcdesign.com/?design=996 http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DataCrystal_8439.jpg]]