Eastman Kodak Co, Rochester, New York, this week introduced a new family of electronic image storage and retrieval systems under the name KIMS, for Kodak Image Management System, and subtly hedged its bets on how long it would be before optical disk consigned microfilm to the dustbin of history by bringing out models that offer either technology – while pointing out that although perhaps more convenient, the disk systems still cost between two and five times as much as the microfilm systems – but naturally offer much faster retrieval. The workstation used with the KIMS systems is based on a DEC MicroVAX II. The top-end system is the KIMS 5000, which combines both 12 optical disk with autoloader, and microfilm, and costs $700,000. The KIMS 4500 is a microfilm-only system, and costs $150,000, while the KIMS 3000 is a manually-loaded optical disk system that also costs $150,000. Kodak also showed off a 14 optical disk drive, the 6800, that stores up to one terabyte of data, three to four times as much as the common 12 disks, and will be available next year, perhaps on KIMS.
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