🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug25.095728.20697@odin.diku.dk> dingbat@diku.dk (Niels Skov 
Olsen) writes:


>> Some time ago I heard somone mention somthing called flopticals (or 
>> something similar), which is a combination of a magnetic and optical
>> media. The capacity was mentioned to be 20mb (even more later) with 
>> access time as harddisks a few years ago, and normal 3.5" floppy 
>> package.

>> I haven't heard anything about it since, so if anyone could point
>> me to articles, tests, or even pruduct information I would be most
>> gratefull.

>> Thanks,

>> Niels

Niels,

  The only "Floptical" I know of is a product by Insight Peripherals (I think
maybe they are in Fremont, CA). It's not really a combination of magnetic and
optical media, but rather a combination of magnetic and optical technology.
They use a standard floppy magnetic media, but they use laser optics for both
tracking and positioning. This is where the data density and access times are
a win. I believe that they can write 20MB of data on a 3.5" floppy and that
they can read (but not write) a standard DOS floppy.

  I remember seeing something in the San Jose Mercury News business section a
few weeks ago to the effect that 3M was going to market this technology (I 
would assume with their media).

  Anyway, that's how I understood the technology. I apologize if any of this
turns out to be in error, it was quite a while ago that I was looking at it.

I hope that helps.

				Thanx,
				  AJ

ps. Wasn't SONY supposed to be out this summer with a 3.5" form factor CD that
    was write-able and could record up to 70min of music? Or is my mind failing
    again?


      **********************************************************************
      * AJ Casamento			"The question is not whether or    *
      * Digital's TRI/ADD Program	 not the opinions are mine; but    *
      * 529 Bryant Ave. PAG-2		 rather, which of my personalities *
      * Palo Alto, CA 94301-1616	 do they belong to?"		   *
      * 415.617.3460							   *
      * ajc@pa.dec.com  						   *
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Am I the only one who wonders quite what niche flopticals are supposed to
fit. The most recent prices I've seen have the drive costing about as much
as a Syquest or Bernoulli drive, while each disk also cost about as much
per MB as a Syquest or Bernoulli cartridge. The 88MB Syquest or 90MB
Bernoulli systems are much larger- always more convenient than 4 or 5 20MB
disks- and are hard drive speed rather than floppy speed which I imagine
flopticals run at.

I remain mystified as to why anyone would want to buy these things.

Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley <maynard@groo.msc.cornell.edu) writes:

>>I remain mystified as to why anyone would want to buy these things.

Personally, I think they're a bridge/hold-over. With the tons of PC products
in the world people got really used to using sneaker-net to move data and "fun"
programs from machine to machine.

As the capacity of these machines continues to increase the need for higher
volume distribution and back-up media has been increasing. But people STILL
want to play sneaker-net to the old machines (a lot of the PCs have never been
near a network in their lives, and many of the home machines have never really
needed one). 

Now using a series of 20MB floppies may not be the cleanest installation you
can think of, but most of the installs that I can easily think of (including
an OS) could pretty readily be done in under 15 floppies. And most would be
under ten. I think a lot of folks are willing to live with that level of pain
to be able to read PC floppies in the same drive.


Personally, I think that the newer 3.5" Magneto/Opticals are a better bet. But
I don't think they'll pick up fast enough. Now, if somebody was to be smart
enough to add the firmware to be able to read a CDROM (the optics are the same
but the format is different so it requires additional firmware...at least that
is what Pioneer told me about modifying one of their drives). Then you'd have
to get the software folks to start using the 3.5" size for their CDROMs. But, I
think that would be an overall win. And I think the resulting volumes would be
enough to really pull the media costs for M/O into line. IMHO, of course.

				Thanx,
				  AJ

	
      **********************************************************************
      * AJ Casamento			"The question is not whether or    *
      * Digital's TRI/ADD Program	 not the opinions are mine; but    *
      * 529 Bryant Ave. PAG-2		 rather, which of my personalities *
      * Palo Alto, CA 94301-1616	 do they belong to?"		   *
      * 415.617.3460							   *
      * ajc@pa.dec.com  						   *
      **********************************************************************

I heard of these from someone who works on the biz, I believe there
was even some sort of standards committee for them.

I'm not sure if it was mag media + optical or CD/ROM + rewriteable
optical on the same disk, but part of the disk was definitely RO and
part RW.

It didn't impress me as that hot an idea, but I guess the motivation
was that you would have the software for some package on the disk and
be able to put your work in that package on the same disk.

I dunno, sounds overly "modular" to me, except perhaps as some sort of
turnkey delivery system (e.g. the software for a router with network
stats dribbled onto the writeable portion, or maybe a printer with
installed software and some fonts, and you can download more fonts
onto the writeable portion after installation, something like that,
actually, that's not a bad application come to think of it.)


--
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | bzs@world.std.com          | uunet!world!bzs
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD

In article <1992Aug25.095728.20697@odin.diku.dk> dingbat@diku.dk (Niels Skov Olsen) writes:
>Some time ago I heard somone mention somthing called flopticals (or 
>something similar), which is a combination of a magnetic and optical
>media. The capacity was mentioned to be 20mb (even more later) with 
>access time as harddisks a few years ago, and normal 3.5" floppy 
>package.
>
>I haven't heard anything about it since, so if anyone could point
>me to articles, tests, or even pruduct information I would be most
>gratefull.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Niels

===========================================================================
The "floptical" drive is made by Insite Peripherals in San
Jose.  You can reach them at (408) 946-8080.  

The drive is a 5.25" drive that will read and write to either
a standard magnetic floppy (3.5" & 5.25") or a 3.5" optical
foppy that looks like a 3.5" standard floppy.  The optical
floppy stores 21Mb.

mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Riley					(408) 427-7117 
Storage Technologies Segment Mgr.		markr@sco.com
The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.

===========================================================================