The Compact Disk Read-Only Memory drive may not be too long for this world – not because the disks are not going to be around for many years, but because the technology is now available to make all such drives able to record and erase on blank disks as well as reading pre-recorded ones. Philips Electronics NV has rallied nine other major companies in a consortium to specify a CD-E Compact Disk-Erasable drive. The nine are IBM Corp, Ricoh Co, Hewlett-Packard Co, Mitsubishi Chemical Co, Mitsumi Electric Co, Matsushita Kotobuki Electric Industries Ltd, Sony Corp, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co and Olympus Optical Co. The new format will enable drives to read existing disks, read and write write-once disks, and write, read and rewrite erasable disks. Existing drives are not expected to be able to read the new erasable disks, but only a minor modification in electronics will be needed to adapt all current CD-ROM drive designs, and manufacturers can easily implement it, the partners say. Their much higher capacity mean the disks are seen as an attractive alternative to floppy disks for temporary back-ups, now that print lay-out and multimedia technologies are making data files so voluminous.
