The International Standards Organisation is expected to establish firm standards for Write-Once optical disk drives – or WORMs, charmingly rendered Write-Once-Ready Mostly by Agence France Presse – at its meeting in Washington this October. So says the Japanese daily Nippon Kogyo, which reports that a Japanese standard compatible with the one set by ISO will be defined by the Ministry of International Trade & Industry by the beginning of next year, giving the green light to Japanese manufacturers eager to put the disks and drives into volume production. The paper notes that ahead of the standard being established, most manufacturers in Japan have contented themselves with putting out prototype and pre-production drives, but are geared up for mass production once there is a firm international standard. A host of companies want to get into the business of making 5.25 optical platters, including Toshiba Corp, Sumitomo Chemical, Daicel Chemicals, Mitsui Tootsu Chemicals, and Dai-Nippon Ink and Chemicals. They are believed to have sufficient manufacturing capacity in place to turn the platters out at a rate of 500,000 a year.
