Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
ers, check with the major companies that produce your type of flash memory device for
the models available.
Figure 10.4
A typical Type II PC Card adapter for CompactFlash media (left) compared to an ATA
DataFlash card (right).
High-Capacity Removable Magnetic Storage Devices
High-capacity removable media drives are an ever-shrinking category. With competition
from USB flash drives (up to 16GB or larger), rewritable DVD (4.7/8.5GB), and external
USB and FireWire hard disks (20GB and up), the last of these types of devices on the
market (from Iomega) have finally been discontinued:
•
Zip
—Flexible media, with capacities of 100MB, 250MB, and 750MB
•
REV
—Rigid media, with capacities of 35GB and 70GB
Floppy Disk Drives
Alan Shugart is generally credited with inventing the floppy disk drive in 1967 while
working for IBM. One of Shugart's senior engineers, David Noble, actually proposed the
flexible medium (then 8 inches in diameter) and the protective jacket with the fabric lin-
ing. Shugart left IBM in 1969, and in 1976 his company, Shugart Associates, introduced
the minifloppy (5 1/4-inch) disk drive. It, of course, became the standard eventually used
by personal computers, rapidly replacing the 8-inch drives. Shugart also helped create
the Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI), which was later renamed
small com-
puter system interface (SCSI)
whenapprovedasanAmericanNationalStandardsInstitute
(ANSI) standard.
