History (1989): Two Flexible Optical Drives Based on ICI Digital Paper

Two flexible optical drive systems – one tape, one disk – are on target for market entry over the next twelve months.

Both will be on public display at the AIIM exhibition and conference in San Francisco (CA) on June 6-8.

The two systems make use of ICI Digital Paper, the low-cost, high-density, flexible optical storage material announced last year.

At the ICI Imagedata booth, there will be a live technology demonstration of flexible optical disks, using drives that are under development by the Bernoulli Optical Systems company (BOSCO) of Boulder (CO).

At the Creo Products Inc. (Vancouver, Canada) booth, a fully functional optical tape drive will seek, read and write data on ICI Digital Paper.

Both the Creo and Bosco drives are meeting their target dates for market entry, with the first Creo tape drive due to be delivered to the Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing this year. The drive forms part of a capacity optical tape data storage system on a 12.5-inch open reel.

The 5.25-inch form factor Bosco drive, which couples Bernoulli technology with ICI Digital Paper, is expected to ship in 2Q90.

ICI Imagedata is part of ICI Films, a business unit of ICI Americas Inc. (Wilmington, DE).

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠16, published on May 1989.