jim@tct.uucp (Jim Kunzman) (11/01/90)
On the way to the office today a co-worker and I were discussing mass
storage technology. The thread was prompted by the recent Byte issue
dedicated to the same subject. I recalled the wave of hysteria brought
about by the announcement of Digital Paper by Britain's ICL. At the time
several U.S. companies were rumored to be interested in licensing the
technology. I believe IOmega was one such company. I fully expected to
be hearing some product announcements, but I haven't even read any
articles about Digital Paper for over a year.
Does anyone have any information about what is happening in the digital paper
arena? Is it a dead product?
Speaking of dead products, Tandy was reported to have a writable CD-ROM
drive in the works. Is this technology still being developed? Obviously,
the name would have to be changed since it wouldn't be read only. I'm
not sure if it was to be rewritable or just WORM.
Any information on either Digital Paper or Tandy's writable technology
would be greatly appreciated and help pass the time during our 1:05:00
commute. Thanks in advance.
--
Jim Kunzman at Teltronics/TCT <jim@tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!jim>
"!(This space intentionally left blank.)"davy@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com (David Curry) (11/06/90)
In article <2730420B.34EB@tct.uucp> jim@tct.uucp (Jim Kunzman) writes: >On the way to the office today a co-worker and I were discussing mass >storage technology. The thread was prompted by the recent Byte issue >dedicated to the same subject. I recalled the wave of hysteria brought >about by the announcement of Digital Paper by Britain's ICL. At the time >several U.S. companies were rumored to be interested in licensing the >technology. I believe IOmega was one such company. I fully expected to >be hearing some product announcements, but I haven't even read any >articles about Digital Paper for over a year. > >Does anyone have any information about what is happening in the digital paper >arena? Is it a dead product? > Digital paper is alive and well, and living in the development labs. Most people are now calling it digital optical tape, since many people seem to think that "digital paper" is actually *made* of paper. In reality, it's made using the same base material as conventional magnetic tape. The estimated media life is 20 years. You've got the company name almost right -- it's ICI Imagedata, not ICL. ICI stands for Imperial Chmical Industries, a British chemical firm. ICI Imagedata is one of their subsidiaries. Dow Chemical is also making the tape. Products, on the other hand, are mostly in the "development" stages. Here's what I've been able to find out in the last few months of hunting around. - Creo Systems in Burnaby, B.C. introduced the first digital optical tape system a few months ago. The CREO 1003 stores one terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) on a single 800 meter by 35 mm (12-inch reel) tape. It runs at 3MB/sec SCSI and has an average access time to any block on the tape of 28 seconds. The drive is about the size of a refrigerator. Unfortunately, they want $250,000 (yes, $0.25 million) for the drive.... a little steep for most sites. Creo can be reached at (604) 437-6879; the contact's name is Lou Misshula. When I talked to him a few months ago, they didn't have any plans for making a smaller, more affordable system. - I talked to the product manager at Bernoulli about a month ago. They were working on a digital paper version of the "Bernoulli Box". The prototypes are basically finished, but according to him, IOmega did some market research and discovered there was no interest in the technology, so they have no plans to bring it to market. I have no idea which idiot marketing research firm they hired -- obviously they only checked the PC market place, instead of the markets where people use disks somewhat larger than 40MB... :-) - The most interesting product, in my opinion, is from LaserTape Systems in Campbell, CA. They take a standard IBM 3480 tape drive (they are using STC's and someone else's [PTSI? something like that anyway]), rip out the magnetic head, and stick in an optical head, and then drop in their own electronics. Some of the specs of the system are: Speed: 3MB/sec SCSI sustained now 6MB/sec SCSI sustained soon 12MB/sec SCSI (100 Mbits/sec) sustained by Q4 1993 Capacity: 50GB/cartridge now 100GB/cartridge by Q4 1993, backward compatible Size: 8-inch form factor Cartridges are about the size of old 8-track tapes Cost: $20,000 (est.) for the drive $250 for a 50GB tape ($0.05/megabyte) LaserTape is not using the same recording mechanism as Creo. Creo uses 32 beams (laser diodes) to write a 32-track tape. LaserTape uses a single beam and "scans" it across the tape using an acousto-optical mechanism which changes the "angle" of the laser beam via a ~100 MHz RF signal. Currently they use 2 lasers to write two lines across the tape; they will increase their speed by simply adding more emitters. It's basically 1.5MB/sec per laser beam. The only problem is, the drives won't be available until mid-1992. They're in the prototype stage right now. But using the 3480 drives and cartridges is clever -- all those stackers, jukeboxes, automated storage systems (5,000-tape changers), storage racks, and so on will all work unmodified with these drives. So there's no need to wait for someone to invent them. When I was talking to the company president last week, he was describing some of these automated tape libraries, once they use his 50GB cartridges, in terms of PETABYTES (1,000 Terabytes). LaserTape Systems can be reached at (408) 370-9064; ask for Allan Connover. That seems to be it. I called up ICI Imagedata (can't seem to find their number right now, or I'd post it here) and asked them who was developing systems based on the media, and the only names I got were Creo and LaserTape. So if there's someone else out there doing it, either ICI doesn't know about it, or won't tell. Supposedly they are trying to market the technology in Japan; maybe we'll see something from Fujitsu or Hitachi or something soon. --Dave Curry SRI International
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (11/08/90)
In article <32794@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com> davy@intrepid.erg.sri.com.UUCP (David Curry) writes: > Cost: $20,000 (est.) for the drive > $250 for a 50GB tape ($0.05/megabyte) I was excited for a while, but it's not price/performance compatitive with existing 8-mm systems (~$10/tape for a 4 gigabyte tape, about half the price/megabyte, and a few thousand for the drive). -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
jtt@tct.uucp (John Tombs) (11/09/90)
In article <32794@sparkyfs.istc.sri.com> davy@intrepid.erg.sri.com.UUCP (David Curry) writes: > ... The CREO 1003 stores one terabyte > (1,000 gigabytes) on a single 800 meter by 35 mm (12-inch reel) > tape. According to my calculator that makes 35714 bytes per square millimeter. Impressive! -- John Tombs at Teltronics/TCT <jtt@tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!jtt>