Imation Corp, one of the prime movers behind the LS-120 high- capacity removable disk drive that is backward-compatible with standard 1.44Mb floppies, has launched the first external LS-120 parallel port device. The SuperDisk Drive, on display this week at the PC Expo show in New York, will be out in July, priced at $200. It includes Imation’s Performance Accelerator software, a caching and buffering utility which brings the speed of the drive and its 120Mb disks up to system performance levels similar to those of hard drives in most operations under Windows 95, the company said in a statement. Imation’s prime competitor in this market, Iomega Corp, which has been selling the competitive 100Mb Zip removable drive in volume for two years or so now, has said that the LS-120’s performance has been compromised by the inclusion of compatibility with current floppy drives: the Zip drive is not compatible with 1.44Mb floppies. Imation has taken out a trademark on the name SuperDisk, and will sell all its LS- 120 products under that name. Despite big name endorsement from computer manufacturers such as Compaq Computer Corp and NEC Corp and drive suppliers such as Mitsubishi Electric Corp and Matsushita Electric Corp’s Panasonic division, the LS-120, formally launched in March 1996 (CI No 2,865) has yet to achieve a high market profile. It was developed by Imation in conjunction with Compaq, OR Technology Inc and Matsushita. Other supporters include Exabyte Inc, Fujitsu ICL Ltd, Hitachi-Maxell Ltd, Precision Instruments Inc, Samsung Electric Co and Vobis Mikrocomputer AG. Oakdale, Minnesota-based Imation, spun-off last year from the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co (3M), has revenues of $2.3bn and employs 9,700 people.
