History (1988): Insite Floptical Disk Drive

Insite Peripherals (Santa Clara,CA) has just dropped a small bomb in the FDD market with a new unit, the Insite Model 1325 Floptical Disk Drive, with a pioneering recording technology and an optical servo, enabling a 25MB storage (20.8MB formatted) on a conventional 3.5-inch floppy disk modified in a post-production process.

The technology that is used has nothing to do with the well-known magneto-optical methods or vertical recording.

Insite has achieved both cost and technology breakthroughs by combining optical and magnetic recording techniques.

The breakthroughs are due partly to the use of low-cost components similar to those developed for compact disc recording technology now available in high volumes. Thus, the disk drive is capable of storing over ten times more data on a standard high-density 3.5-inch type floppy disk than previously available.

At the same time, due to the use of existing flexible disk drive technologies and hardware, Insite’s unit maintains the inherently low costs of floppy technology.

The Floptical disk drive combines removable floppy magnetic recording techniques with the high track density of an optical servo. The marriage of the two technologies enables Insite 1325 to reach high data capacities on a conventional, inexpensive 3.5-inch diskette.

This is achieved by concentrating on increased track density using optical technology rather than on magnetic bit density.

Insite’s magnetic technology requires no increase in magnetic flux density over standard high density 3.5-inch type drives to achieve very high capacities.

Closed loop optical servos
The higher track densities are obtained using closed loop optical servos that allow the read-write head to precisely follow data tracks centricities of the diskette as well a compensating for external disturbances.

Track densities of conventional magnetic floppy disk drives is 48 to 135tpi. Pure optical disk drives are capable of track densities over 15,000tpi. For comparison, Insite track density is 1,250tpi, with 24,145 bpi, v. 570tpi for Iomega Bernouilli 10-20MB units, 480tpi for Konica 10MB drives, and 333tpi for Kodak/DTC 10MB floppies. The comparative bit densities are 23.3Kbpi for the Iomega, 22Kbpi for the Kodak/DTC unit, 18Kbpi for the Konica, and 24.1Kbpi for the Insite unit.

Insite has filed patents on several unique inventions in its design implementation.

These include the method and format for optical diskette modification; the unique optical system and the alignment method; and the analog-to-digital servo demodulation technique.

The technology takes advantage of low-cost, high-volume components similar to those used in CD technology for optical decoding of servo tracks. The drive utilizes less-expensive light-emitting diodes rather than laser diodes used in CDs for the optical light source, the same low-cost optical detector as in CDs, and plastic molded optical lenses.

At the same time, the use of standard, off-the-shelf floppy disk driven, mechanical components and media kept costs competitive with conventional floppy drives and media.

The design utilizes existing flexible disk drive elements: in particular, the spindle and stepper actuator motors, disk loading mechanism and spindle clamps and certain motor drive electronics.

The average seek time is 65ms.

A disk controller and common command set (CCS) SCSI interface are embedded on the drive. The embedded SCSI controller includes the provision of data formatting, error checking and correction and defect mapping.

For those IBM PC/XT/AT system installations where there is no SCSI host adapter available, Insite provides an optional host adapter.

The drive is compatible with the standard Apple computer SCSI interface as well.

The diskette
The diskette is a conventional 3.5-inch double-sided high-density diskette. It is modified in a post-production process proprietary to Insite which does not require media manufacturers to alter present manufacturing processes.

Approximately 1,250 concentric grooves are optically inscribed onthe recording surface of the diskettes paced at about 2011 intervals corresponding to a track density of 1,250tpi.

These encoded servo tracks enable the drive’s R/W heads through a closed-loop servo to follow the very high density magnetic tracks.

The servo is indelible which therefore makes it unvulnerable to servo erasure and Floptical media need not be ‘defect free’ as is required by magnetically encoded servo writing.

The company
James Adkisson, Insite’s president, the originator of the initial 5.25-inch floppy concept at Shugart Associates over ten years ago, founded Insite in February 1987, along with other disk drive industry veterans.

The company has secured over $5.5 million in equity venture capital, from the following firms: Asset Management Corp.; MotorDavidow Ventures; Citicorp Venture Capital; Dougery, Jones and Wilder; the Lefcourt Group; PruTechR&D Funding Corp; Sequoia Capital; and Technology Venture Investors.

Marketing
The units will be available during the fourth quarter 1988 for evaluation.

Planned volume production will take place in the first quarter of1989, with OEM quantity prices expected to be under $250.

For the introduction of its new drive, Insite Peripherals has embarked on a strategy including the following elements: 1) the licensing of multiple manufacturers for media and drives; 2) the use of standard, off-the-shelf components in product design; 3) the establishment of a licensee trademark; and 4) providing licensees with media servo writing equipment.

The company targets three industry segments: the backup market now being exploited by tape drive manufacturers; upgrades of existing micro-based computers such as the IBM PC/XT/AT/PS2 or Apple Macintosh; and the floppy OEM market.

The drives will be marketed domestically and internationally to OEMs, VAR,VADs and indirectly to end users, utilizing direct sales representative and distributor organizations.

The company intends its Floptical drives to become a ‘standard’, and is pursuing several avenues to that end.

The drive uses existing standardized technologies, off-the-shelf components and hardware in the product design and manufacture in order to be competitive and to take advantage of the market opportunities.

The design emphasizes a high de gree of parts commonality with existing 3.5-inch drives.

Insite will generate support for standardization of its drives through a licensing program aimed at manufacturers as multiple sources for both media and drives.

The company plans to introduce in cooperation with licensees higher-capacity drives over the next two years for higher removable memory capacities.

The Californian firm will license major media manufacturers to supply Floptical Diskettes using its proprietary servo formatter.

Media will also be supplied as a convenience to customers which prefer dealing with one vendor for drives and media.

Insite has developed its proprietary Path-Maker optical servo formatter, for which patents and copyright have been filed.

The company sells the Path-Maker to media manufacturers under license to produce compatible media without restriction.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠7, volume ≠1, published on August 1988.