History (1990): Sony DIR-1000 Records Up to 100GB on Single Cassette

Sony Corp. of America (Park Ridge, NJ) revealed a cassette style digital data recorder, the DIR-1000 using firm’s helical scanning technology.

The unit can be used in applications like telemetry, radar, astronomy, satellite data gathering and mass storage of graphic data.

According to Sony, it can record up to approximately 100GB of data on a large cassette tape (19mm width) at 32MB/s.

The DIR-1000 can operate with the small, medium and large D-1 cassette tapes commonly used in the broadcast industry.

The maximum storage capacities available on small and medium cassettes are approximately 14 and 44MB, respectively.

The recorder is designed to permit remote control and status monitor via RS-422, GPIB or RS-232C interfaces.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠35, published on December 1990.