Floptical
Floptical refers to a type of floppy
The original Floptical technology was announced in 1988[1][2][3] and introduced late in 1991[citation needed] by Insite Peripherals, a venture funded company set up by Jim Adkisson, one of the key engineers behind the original 5+1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive development at Shugart Associates in 1976. The main shareholders were Maxell, Iomega and 3M.
Technical aspects
Unformatted | 25 MB |
Formatted | 20385 KB |
Rotational speed |
720 rpm[4] |
Track density | 1250 TPI[4]
|
Recording density | 23980 bpi ( RLL)[4]
|
Transfer from disk | 1.6 Mb/s[4]
|
Buffer transfer rate | 2 MB/s[4] |
Average seek time |
65 ms[4] |
Settle time | 15 ms[4] |
Motor start time | 750 ms[4] |
Number of heads | 2[4] |
Cylinders | 755[4] |
Sectors per track | 27 |
Sector size | 256, 512, or 1024 bytes (set at format time) |
Interface | SCSI |
The technology involves reading and writing data magnetically, while optically aligning the read/write head in the drive using grooves in the disk being sensed by an infrared LED and sensor (a form of
To allow for a high degree of compatibility with existing
At least two models were produced, one with a manual lever that mechanically ejected the disc from the drive, and another with a small pinhole into which a paperclip can be inserted, in case the device rejected or ignored SCSI eject commands.
Market performance
Insite licensed the floptical technology to a number of companies, including
Around 70,000 Insite Flopticals are believed to have been sold worldwide in the product's lifetime.
Iomega licensed the Floptical technology as early as 1989 and produced a compatible drive known as the Insider.
A few years later, a number of other companies introduced Floptical-like but incompatible systems:
Iomega introduced their own
Another similar system was
A smaller competitor was the almost unknown Caleb UHD144 in 1997.
Since 1998, Sony also tried their own Floptical-based format, the Sony HiFD, but quality control problems ruined its reputation. The first version could store 150 MB, but it was soon replaced by a 200 MB version.
There was serious consideration that one of these systems would succeed where the Floptical failed and replace the standard floppy disk outright, but the rapid introduction of writable CD-ROM systems in the early 2000s made the market disappear.
Operating system support
Support of Floptical drives is present in all
See also
References
- ^ Webber, Julie (1988-08-15). "Insite's "Floptical" Drive to Increase Storage Capacity". InfoWorld: 6. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
- ^ Kotkin, Joel (1988-09-01). "The Return of the Floppies - Floppy disk drive company looks to innovate to compete with Japanese manufacturers". Inc. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
- ^ Brownstein, Mark (1988-09-12). "High-Capacity Floppies are Drives of the Future - Experts See 100MB Capacity". InfoWorld: 27, 30, 32. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k ""Floptical" drive info". 1990-01-17. Archived from the original on 2017-06-19. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
- ^ a b Pollack, Andrew (1990-03-14). "The Evolution of the Floppy Disk for PCs". The New York Times. Business Technology. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
- ^ Bixby, Robert (November 1991). "The flop's a hit. (floptical technology)". Compute! (135). Archived from the original on 2017-06-19. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
- ^ "Lack of Floptical support in Windows XP". Microsoft. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
Further reading
- Thomas, Fred Charles (1994-02-01). Migliore, Leonard R.; Walker, Richard W. (eds.). "Manufacture of 21 MB Floptical disk using acousto-optically controlled laser ablation process". Proceedings SPIE 2062, Lasers as Tools for Manufacturing. Lasers as Tools for Manufacturing. 2062: 113. S2CID 109498036.
- LaPlante, Alice (1989-04-03). "486 Group To Discuss High-Density Drives". InfoWorld: 5. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
- Yesterday's Technology (2016). "Floptical Disks". Retrieved 2017-05-24.
- Curtis, Jason. Museum Of Obsolete Media (ed.). "Floptical (case)". Retrieved 2017-05-24.
- "Floptical Technology Primer". Iomega Corporation Publication. 1992. Retrieved 2017-10-01.