History (1998): First IBM 3590-Compatible Tape Drive From Fujitsu

First IBM 3590-compatible from Fujitsu was unveiled at Comdex, a Magstar-compatible 128-track 3590 drive, the M8100.

It’s been a 3-year wait since Big Blue first announced its model, which listed at the time for $43,500, compared to $29,500 for the Japanese firm’s model today.

Additionally, by mid-99, Fujitsu’s model will offer the same 10GB capacity cartridge, but with an improved sustained transfer rate of 13.5MB/s, compared to 9MB/s for IBM.

Autoloaders for 7 cartridges and 5 or 10 cartridges are available.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 131 on December 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.