From: jon@alpha.ee.ufl.edu (Jon Mellott)
Subject: Re: Some more misconceptions regarding OS/2 and NT
Organization: EE Dept at UF
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 15:06:33 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.171159.18777@watson.ibm.com>, margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:
|> In  <mcdonald.208@aries.scs.uiuc.edu>  mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (J. D. McDonald) writes:
|> > In article <1992Aug15.010451.25474@microsoft.com> petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Ske
|> > >Actually, this brings up a thought.  How many computers were there with
|> > >disk drives 10-15 years ago.  Most of them used casette tape (PC's).
|> >
|> > >It must have been really difficult for you to switch over to floppy disks
|> > >from cassette.  The price difference was about equivalent to getting
|> > >a CDROM.  The same can be said for Hard Drives.
|> >
|> > >Would you have us still living in the world of cassette tapes for data
|> > >storage, where load times were measured in minutes for even the smallest
|> > >applications.
|> >
|> > >People NOT upgrading to newer technologies is REDICULOUS, especially
|> > >when it is cheaper in the long run.
[...]
|> My next toy is going to be a floptical.  A diskette that holds 100 - 200
|> megabytes and which I can write on seems much more useful to *me*, since
|> I can use it for backups as well.  And Pete's arguments about using the
|> CD-ROM for distribution of large amounts of software applies equally
|> well to the floptical.  As a developer, it means that it's easy to keep
|> all my source on it so I can keep my home and work machines in synch.
|> 
Actually, the "Floptical" is a product from Insite which uses a barium ferrite 
4 MB floppy with tracking rings burnt into the media using a laser, thus 
allowing the *optical* tracking mechanism of the drive to achieve a high 
track density and about 20 MB net storage. 

I think that you are talking about the 3.5" standardized magneto-optical (MO)
drives that have come on the scene. While the standard format on this drive  
stores 128 MB, the drives are currently pretty costly (~$2000) and the media 
isn't cheap either (~$70/ea). This cost/capacity is not competitive with 
CD-ROM. CD-ROMs can be stampted out for a couple of bucks each (after the 
NREs which aren't bad anymore). An adequate CD-ROM drive can be had for ~$500. 
Thus I can't see that Pete's arguments also apply to MO drives.

BTW, the Insite Floptical is around $500 and also reads and writes 3.5" 
720K and 1.44MB formats, and may be used as a boot device (i.e., you could 
replace your regular 3.5" drive with it). The media is around $10/disk 
(haven't checked lately), so the cost isn't bad. To my mind, this is a 
nice alternative to the small (20MB-40MB) tape drives which are priced 
around or just under the price of the Floptical. 

Here is the kicker. Many users are generating files bigger than the 
standard floppy sizes. For example I've got a 10 page Word document that 
is about 1.7 MB due to embedded graphics and the like. Ooops. Now the only 
standard DOS utility that will let me move the file to another machine is 
BACKUP (yuck!). Thus the conclusion is that a higher capacity removable 
storage medium is required. I don't think of the 2.88 MB format as being
adequate: a mere doubling is insufficient. The Insite floptical is reasonably
priced (I can remember paying $500 for a single-sided 5.25" floppy drive in 
1980), and has a useful storage capacity. Somebody big has to get behind this
technology and push it hard (into the marketplace, that is). Big blue doesn't 
seem interested. MS could do it. Include drivers in Windows NT for the 
floptical (assuming it needs any -- I don't know). Offer software on the 
floptical format (Word for Windows on 1 floptical diskette: not bad). 


That's my $0.02, anyway.

Jon Mellott
High Speed Digital Architecture Laboratory
University of Florida
(jon@alpha.ee.ufl.edu)