It is clear from the capacities of Winchester drives in the same form factor that floppy disks could pack much more data if only the read-write heads could be positioned precisely enough – now Insite Peripherals Inc of Santa Clara, California reckons that its Floptical drive is the answer: the drive uses optical tracking to position the read-write heads accurately, whereupon the magnetic heads take over, and the company reckons that the thing can store something like 20Mb, and according to the Wall Street Journal, will cost no more than $250 in large OEM quantities, with disks at about $2.50 apiece; who wants it? Apple Computer Inc currently has to deliver A/UX Unix for the Mac II on 70 floppy disks, and it would be nice to get that down to just three Floptical ones.
