Avatar Systems

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Avatar Systems Corporation
Number of employees
140 (1997, peak)[1]

Avatar Systems Corporation, later trading as Avatar Peripherals,

2.5-inch cartridge hard disk drives, initially through computer system builders as an OEM
and, later, directly to customers as a vendor.

History

Avatar Systems was founded in 1991 in

2.5-inch form factor as the most viable for their drives.[3]

The company's first hard drive, the Remington ASR-80, had a storage capacity of 85 MB.

NCR Corporation (then a subsidiary of AT&T), who featured the ASR-80 in several of their high-end workstations, and Dauphin Technology, who used it in their Dauphin 550 laptop, rebranding it as the DynaDrive.[5][4][7] In March 1993, Avatar introduced the Magnum ASR-80M, which combined the earlier ASR-80 with a standard 1.44-MB 3.5-inch floppy drive.[4]

The computing press characterized Avatar's rollout of their drives as "quiet".

QMS.[9]

However, by mid-1994, successor drives with higher capacities had failed to materialize, while sales had stalled completely. Around May or June 1994, the founders temporarily shut down operations while they looked for new executive talent. In October 1994, they hired Robert Martell, a veteran of

Apple, Intergraph, and Acer.[10] In January 1996, they secured their first new design win in two years with Acer, who offered Avatar's new 130-MB removable cartridge hard drive (rebranded as the HARDiskette) on some of their laptop models.[11][8] In May 1996, Avatar inked an agreement with laptop maker Mitsuba to supply them with the same drive.[8] In January 1997 they delivered a 210-MB version of the HARDiskette.[12]

In March 1997, Avatar released the Shark 250, an external removable hard drive system featuring the company's newest 250-MB HARDiskette.

EZFlyer system.[2] Windows Magazine praised its sturdy construction but found the potential throughput hampered by the use of a parallel connection.[15] Avatar later offered a PC Card adapter for the Shark 250, allowing laptop users to obtain better transfer speeds.[16] One major design flaw suffered by the Shark, mentioned in its manual, is a catastrophic failure of the head assembly should the drive reader unit be transported with a cartridge installed.[17]

Avatar filed for

Chapter 7 bankruptcy in October 1998, leaving numerous late adopters of the drive irate that a $50 rebate offered earlier in 1997[18] could not be cashed in.[19][20]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 9781560798347
    – via the Internet Archive.
  2. ^ a b c d e Stone, M. David (May 6, 1997). "Avatar Peripherals Inc.: Shark 250/Avatar AR-3210NS". PC Magazine. 16 (9). Ziff-Davis: 172–176 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ a b c d e Nash, Jim (March 28, 1994). "Avatar on crusade to revolutionize hard-disk drives". The Business Journal. 11 (50). American City Business Journals: 1 et seq. – via Gale.
  4. ^ a b c d Strattner, Anthony (March 1993). "Avatar quietly rolls out portable storage breakthrough". Computer Shopper. 13 (3). SX2 Media Labs: 72 – via Gale.
  5. ^ a b Costlow, Terry (November 30, 1992). "NCR to use Avatar's small, removable disk drives: The 2 1/2-inch, 85-Mbyte drives will go into high-end workstations". Electronic Engineering Times (723). UBM LLC: 15 – via Gale.
  6. ^ Gaskin, Robert R. (November 22, 1993). "Computer data storage: The trends and hot products". Electronic Design. 41 (24). Endeavor Business Media: 57 et seq. – via Gale.
  7. ^ Lee, Yvonne (November 2, 1992). "Dauphin adds removable catridge to notebook". InfoWorld. 14 (44). IDG Publications: 32 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ a b c d Hostetler, Michele (May 6, 1996). "Bleak situation turns into a profitable one for Avatar". The Business Journal. 14 (3). American City Business Journals: 6 – via Gale.
  9. ^ Meilach, Dona Z. (March 1994). "Bigger is better (and faster) for large file storage/playback". Computer Pictures. 12 (2). Access Intelligence: S9 – via Gale.
  10. ^ Krause, Reinhardt (November 13, 1995). "Data storage vendors to tout design-ins". Electronic News. 41 (2091). Sage Publications: 1 et seq. – via Gale.
  11. ^ Wright, Maury (January 18, 1996). "High-capacity, removable storage drives shake floppy foundation". EDN. 41 (2). UBM Canon: 41 et seq. – via Gale.
  12. ^ Wright, Maury (January 16, 1997). "The final showdown begins for a floppy replacement". EDN. 42 (1A-2). UBM Canon: 63 et seq. – via Gale.
  13. ^ a b Hamblen, Matt (March 17, 1997). "Avatar launches hard drive targeted at road warriors". Computerworld. 31 (11). IDG Publications: 29 – via Gale.
  14. ^ Johnson, Dave (July 1997). "The Shark 250 cuts its teeth on mass storage". Computer Shopper. 17 (7). SX2 Media Labs: 222 – via Gale.
  15. ^ Forbes, Jim (June 1997). "Lightweight backup to go". Windows Magazine. 8 (6). UBM LLC: 167 – via Gale.
  16. ISBN 9780789727459
    – via Google Books.
  17. ^ Brown, Bruce (February 10, 1998). "Read the Instructions". PC Magazine. 17 (3). Ziff-Davis: 81 – via Google Books.
  18. ^ "Shark price tags dive". Computerworld. 31 (33). IDG Publications: 67. August 18, 1997 – via Gale.
  19. ^ Furger, Roberta (October 1998). "Rebate or Rip-Off?". PC World. 16 (10). IDG Publications: 183 – via Gale.
  20. ^ "Shark Maker Now Chum". Maximum PC. Future Publishing: 36. December 1998 – via Google Books.
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