History (1997): PicoDisk Into 175MB and 350MB PCMCIA II HDDs

PicoDisk, Inc. is a new Los Gatos, CA-based firm incorporated only a few weeks ago to take up a technology originally conceived by JMA and Jim Money.

The technology more specifically relates to 2 disk drives, the 175MB Model 1-175 and 350MB Model 2-350 at twice the capacity.

The only difference between the 2 devices is in the number of heads, 1 and 2 respectively. All other specs are identical.

The originality of this technology comes from the small scale of the units: 5mm thick in a PCMCIA II form factor.

A single magnetic disk spins at 3,210rpm with an areal density of 1,032 million bits per square inch (7,460tpi and 138,300bpi). Average seek time is 18ms. The operating shock is especially high: 700G.

To attain this level of miniaturization, the drives rely on an integrated arm assembly, a ceramic spindle motor assembly, a ceramic base and cover, as well as a ceramic MC board located beside the magnetic platter. The interface is PCMCIA-ATA.

JMA apparently engaged in discussions with Texas Instruments and other interested firms.

The drives were also presented more than a year ago at a conference organized by Dataquest.

For the moment, however, Jim Money is still seeking a manufacturing partner. He has suggested that the Model 1-175 is more or less intended for digital cameras, while the double capacity version is better suited to the emerging handheld PC technology running the Windows CE operating system.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 108, published on January 1997.