History (1989): Storage Dimensions Displays Subsystem Close to 1GB

According to a spokesman from Storage Dimensions (San Jose, CA), for the first time in the world its company publicly demonstrated a complete peripheral subsystem on a computer, here an Apple Macintosh, based on the well known magneto-optical Tahiti I disk announced by its head company Maxtor at 1988 Comdex Spring.

It was displayed beginning of June in San Francisco, CA’s AIIM Show, specialized on electronic imaging where magneto-optical disks were abundant.

The official announcement of the product is scheduled for August 1989.

The LaserStor erasable optical subsystems will be available in several versions, for AT bus 286/386, for MCA bus or for NuBus (Macintosh SE, II or IIcx) and finally for Novell NetWare networks.

Retailing at $7,995, end user price, the same drive will be able to hold a 596MB (298MB per side) disk in a cartridge sold for $295, or 932MB (466 per side) for an extra hundred dollars. Access time ranges from an average 35ms to a maximum of 70ms. This is the fastest removable magneto-optical disk. Transfer rate is 5Mb/s with the 596MB disk and 8 to 13Mb/s for the 932MB one. It offers SCSI interface, 30,000-hour MTBF, and an over ten-year lifetime.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠17, published on June 1989.