ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MAGAZINE/MISC/NEWS0492.ZIP/FLOPTICL.TXT

Text File | 1992-05-01 | 8.0 KB | 141 lines

Cupertino, CA -April 13, 1992--The Floptical Technology Association today
issued guidelines to clarify how Floptical technology relates to other
disk storage technologies, along with guidelines to the proper usage for
the term "Floptical" as a registered trademark.

"Ironically, our very success has caused the term "Floptical" to be used in
many ways, referring to a variety of drive types, both magnetic and
optical or in combination," stated Chuck Moran, chairman of the
association's industry development committee, and vice president of sales
and marketing at Insite Peripherals. "We've prepared some clarifying
information that will help the trade and business media to understand the
basic differences between technologies, and how to properly use the term.
We have to protect the branded product name from becoming generic."

TECHNOLOGY DIFFERENTIATION The following brief description of the main
technologies confused with Floptical technology includes optical
magneto-optical and other very high capacity approaches. Some of the
qualifications for becoming an industry standard are also outlined.

∙ Floptical technology. The term refers specifically to combination of
optical servo track positioning and magnetic read and write technologies
used in 3.5-inch very high capacity floppy disk drives containing 21
megabytes (MB). The disk drives are currently manufactured only by Insite
Peripherals, its manufacturing partner MKE and its licensee, Iomega Corp.
Floptical media is manufactured only by Maxell Corp. of America and 3M
under license from Insite. The chief characteristic of the unique
technology combination is the ability to read and write downward to
standard 3.5-inch 720KB and 1.44MB diskettes, thus protecting user data
storage investments. The indelible optical servo pattern on the Floptical
diskette is used for track positioning in the 21MB mode and cannot be
erased. In addition, the technology utilizes features used on
high-performance hard disk drives, error correction (ECC) and defect
mapping. A SCSI interface is used as it's a seamless solution to
integrating Floptical drives into PCs. Its "device independent" nature
allows integration into a wide variety of system platforms. Also, the
intelligence built into the drive greatly increases data reliability and
integrity.

∙ Optical. This technology is associated chiefly with compact disks (CDs)
and CDROM disk drives and media. These drives are notable for high track
density, high capacity, slow speed, high cost and read-only format.
CD-ROMs are typically used for software distribution of large data bases,
such as encyclopedias and other library data. A variant of this technology
is also termed "WORM" for Write Once, Read Many; WORMs are typically used
for data archival. Optical drives cannot read downward to standard
3.5-inch diskettes.

∙ Magneto-optical. Similar to pure optical, such drives can erase data for
re-write and read again using a magnetic field prepared by the heat of a
laser. The features are similar to CDs in terms of capacity, speed and
cost, and are thus chiefly used for archiving. Magneto-optical drives
cannot read or write downward to standard 3.5-inch diskettes.

∙ Other very high capacity floppy disk drives. No other supplier of high
capacity 3.5-inch floppy drives has demonstrated downward read and write
compatibility with standard 3.5-inch 72OKB and 1.44MB diskettes. Although
confused sometimes with Floptical technology, these approaches use
magnetic recording only with an embedded erasable magnetic servo. Without
downward read/write compatibility no other very high capacity technology
is a competitor to Floptical technology.

None of these other approaches for very high capacity proposed in the U.S.
and Japan have achieved any of the necessary requisites to be a contender
as an industry standard. In contrast, Floptical technology has multiple
volume manufacturers licensed to produce drives, media and host adapters.
In addition, large manufacturers support the technology both in the U.S.
and Japan (Iomega, Maxell, 3M, MKE and Chinon). A capacity migration path,
based on the open-ended Floptical technology, points the direction of
increased performance and storage capabilities over the next several
years, past 100MB and even more

USAGE OF THE FLOPTICAL TECHNOLOGY REGISTERED TRADEMARK

This is provided not only for easy recognition of the technology but to
distinguish it from other technologies, and to help protect the rights of
Insite Peripherals. Floptical is a registered trademark of Insite
Peripherals, Inc, as its (R) symbol denotes.

Always use the term as an adjective. Trademarks are adjectives and never
used as nouns. Thus, "Floptical technology," "Floptical disk drives,"
"Floptical storage subsystem," "Floptical media" and "Floptical host
adapters" are the preferred terms. When referring to the Floptical
trademark in text, always capitalize the first letter of Floptical. Also,
Floptical should not be used in the plural. The correct way to refer to
more than one product is to say "two Floptical disk drives."

The possessive form is to say, "the main advantages of Floptical technology
are . . .", not "Floptical's advantages." Only the generic product name
may be pluralized or used in the possessive. For example, refer to "the
Floptical media's features . . ."

An easy test is to remove the trademark from the sentence; if * remains a
complete sentence, the trademark is probably being used correctly.

The Floptical Technology Association is comprised of five manufacturers
Insite Peripherals and Iomega Corp.; media manufacturers Maxell and 3M;
and Insite's drive manufacturing partner MKE; along with SCSI host adapter
companies Adaptec, Future Domain and Rancho Technology.

The 3.5-inch 21MB Floptical disk drive is viewed as the emerging standard
for high-capacity flexible disk drive storage as it is seen as a superior
solution for low cost removable high-capacity data storage needs for the
vast majority of microcomputer users.

OTHER FLOPTICAL TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTERS

Announced support of the Floptical technology standard includes Commodore,
Westchester, PA; Arrow Electronics, Melville, NY; Digital Micronics, Inc.,
Carlsbad, Calif.; GrassRoots, Inc., Lenexa, Kansas; Liberty Systems, Santa
Ana, Calif.; PLI (Peripheral Land, Inc.), Fremont, Calif.; Procom
Technology, Costa Mesa, Calif.; Rancho Technology, Rancho Cucamonga,
Calif.; and TASS Optical World, San Diego, Calif. These market to the IBM
PC, Amiga and/or Macintosh markets.

FLOPTICAL TECHNOLOGY BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Products based on Floptical technology include disk drives, media, host
adapter and subsystem products. The 3.5-inch Floptical disk drive features
21MB of formatted capacity (25MB unformatted), one inch high form factor
and single +5 volt power requirements. The Floptical disk drive uses
standard 3.5-inch diskettes and variable mode dual heads which make it the
first and only very high capacity 3.5-inch flexible drive able to read and
write standard 720KB and 1.44MB 3.5-inch diskettes. The Floptical drive's
very high capacity is achieved by combining patented optical servo track
positioning and magnetic recording technologies.

The Floptical Technology Association is located at 22710 Stevens Creek
Blvd., Suite 220, Cupertino, CA 95014. Telephone: [phone]; fax:
408/446-0450.

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