From: des@inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd)
Subject: Re: Floptical drives anyone??
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
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Kin Chan (Sparrow+@CMU.EDU) wrote:
: Just curious why floptical drives never seemed to catch on. Remember
: those 21 Mb disks that look and feel like 3.5" floppies? These drives
: are SCSI devices and can read and write both 720 Kb and 1.44/21 Mb
: disks. Sounds to me to be one great product for the PC market. Are the
: prices really that unaffordable compared to CD-ROMs which are currently
: not rewritable? I know about the new rewritable CDs and expect SONY to
: develop the first MDs for the computer. My question is: why isn't there
: any substantial interest in developing the flopticals?

Certainly in the UK the 21Mb flopticals are about the same price as a
cheap CD-ROM now (you seem to be able to get them for around GBP
200-250). However the bigger optical drives (e.g. 128Mb) are much more
expensive - around the GBP 1000 mark.

A couple of questions that someone may be able to answer - the 21Mb
flopticals - are they direct drop in replacements for a floppy or do
they need driver software etc. I.e. do you just rip out the floppy
drive, plug the same cables into the floptical, stick in a flopti-disk
and hey presto you have a 21Mb floppy. This sounds far too easy.

On the subject of Sony developing MDs for computers, I have reread a
PCW article on this subject and there it says that Sony have been doing
optical drives for other people for some time and may be about to do a
product themselves. From the article it seems that the audio MD format
is a byproduct of their computer storage work - the MD  mechanism is
identical to their MO computer optical drives. A Sony spokesman was
quoted as saying that a 2.5" MD disk would hold about 100Mb of data
though he refused to comment on any possibility of this being
productized.

The article said that one of the problems holding back development in
this area was lack of sensible standards plus there are at least 2
distinct optical storage mechanisms around at present. Given that it
probably needs MDs being used as a distribution medium to get it
into the market and since this has already been cornered by CDs it
probably needs someone to come in with a very strong marketting lead
to get MDs accepted.

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david shepherd: des@inmos.co.uk                     tel: 0454-616616 x 625
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