paleo@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Dr. Constantine A. LaPasha) (09/12/88)
The floptical drives (magneto-optical drives) do seem to be an interesting possibility for mass storage. Seems that some other companies are also comming out with tis type of drive. I remember seeing an article in the May 12, 1988 issue of Electronics about the drives being made by Maxto Corp., San Jose, CA. The specs were something like: Tahiti I : 5.25 inch magneto-optical drive 43.5 ms average access time 13.7 Mbits/s data transfer rate 1.024 GigaByte capacity - CAV (constant angular velocity) recording or 650 Mbyte capacity - using proposed ANSI standard X3B11 estimated at $2500 OEM pricing, ~ $150 each for disks (end user price) Fiji I : 3.5 inch magneto-optical drive 100 ms average access time 2 Mbits/s data transfer rate 160 Mbyte capacity estimated at < $1000 in large OEM quantities ~ $25 each for disks (end user price) The reported capacities appear to be for storing to BOTH sides of the disk, but the drives only record/read one side, so the disks must be flipped manually. Still, 500 meg on a one-sided 5.25 disk doesn't sound too bad. It sounded like both drives use the same SCSI interface. Does anyone have any recent info on these drives, or do you know of better alternatives? Any comments on the speed of the 1gig drive? (It was supposed to be about as fast as most Winchester hard drives) The price of the 1gig drive seems a little steep for home use, considering the cost of an Amiga system these days, but it might not be out of line if you were dealing with lots of image data. (now all I need is a couple tens of meg for a frame buffer, and a real good frame grabber..8-) ***--------------*****---------------*** Hey, I don't work for, support, have interest in etc. Maxto Corp. I don't even have their full address... ======== comments & mistakes are mine -- subject to reasonable offer ======= -- Kostya LaPasha paleo@uncecs.edu or paleo@ecsvax.uncecs.edu - comments, opinions, etc. are mine NOT those of NCSU -