Rodime Plc, Glenrothes, Scotland has taken Matsushita Electric Industrial Co affiliate Japanese Victor Co, JVC, as its partner in development of 3.5 Winchesters for the laptop and entry-level personal computer market, and the two will offer an identical range of products worldwide. The initial product, from Rodime called the RO 3151A, is expected in early 1991 and will have 122Mb on two platters with AT interface. It will use signal processing servo techniques to give access time of 18mS and 5.5Mbyte-per-second data transfer rate; it will also have segmented 64Kb buffering while requiring only a single 5V power supply, drawing 0.3W in standby mode to 3.2W when active. It will be followed by AT and SCSI drives with capacities up to 210Mb, all in a 1 high form factor. The products will be manufactured in JVC’s automated assembly facilities in Japan. Separately, Rodime announced what it claims is the highest capacity 3.5 drive anywhere in its new 3004T Series, which comes in versions storing 540Mb and 331Mb. They have access times of 12mS, a 256Kb buffer and advanced caching scheme, and SCSI-2 interface which supporting transfer rates up to 10Mbytes-per-second. The 3004Ts feature separate 16-bit servo and host control microprocessors which implement innovative, fully interrupt-driven firmware to ensure rapid response to host requests. The new new is designed for capacities beyond 1Gb without without major changes to the head-disk assembly. No price, delivery.
