Floppy discs: the classics never die.

matsu · July 22, 2003 10:11PM

Those wacky folks at Iomega are at it again, and this time I think they might just have it right.

It's called DCT, it's small -- about the size of the 50cent piece (or a toonie for you canucks); light at just 9 grams (0.3 oz); and, has fully rewriteable magnetic simplicity.

Best part, it holds 1.5GB in a tiny affordable package. It's meant for cameras and small devices, and to me it looks liek the perfect redux of the floppy.

Linkies:

http://www.iomega.com/about/prreleas..._platform.html

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0307/03072205iomegadct.asp

I mean, it's really small, holds two full CD's and change worth of data without any burn/write/rewrite tedium. It really adresses all the faults of the seemingly stillborn Dataplay tech. Will we use it for computers? Nope. But for PDA's, MP3 players and digital cameras, hell, even for 60 minutes worth of decent quality MPEG4 video, it seems like a winner.

The goal seems to be to provide the size advantage of smart media/microdrives with very large capacities for a fraction of he cost. Hats off to them if they can pull it off. I'd love to own a digital camera that used this storage tech, or an MP3 player for that matter!

ghost_user_name · July 22, 2003 10:25PM

Ummm... that's all and good but knowing IOMEGA the price will be too high and the product will never take off.

matsu · July 22, 2003 10:59PM

iomega has been nursing a pretty large base of zip customers almost exclusively for the past few years. but unlike the various permutations of zip/jazz, which had increasingly to deal with cdr and now dvd-r competition, DCT would move into an area where all the players either cost a lot more or store a lot less, and cheaper competition doesn't seem likely for a while. A blue laser device of similar size was testing at 1GB capacity and would have the accompanying optical based problems of read/write/rewrite schemas, magnetic media is much more flexible and faster.

Unless GB+ capacity cards suddenly dropped in price, what could compete by mid-late 2004? Even at $20-30 a pop they'd be a steal for digital camera use.

ebby · July 22, 2003 11:17PM

Looks just like a Click! drive. (AKA: PocketZip) I'm surprised they made the jump from 40MB to 1.5GB, usually there is something in between. Anyway, like all new technology, it will be expensive but then the price will drop. I kinda lost a little respect for Iomega however, because they don't support older product compatibility as well as I remember.

torifile · July 22, 2003 11:25PM

Don't forget the Click of DEATH!!!111!. I'm never going to trust Iomega again.

dog almighty · July 22, 2003 11:43PM

The price? How many hundreds of dollars? Sounds like a winner!

750MB Zip disks with unlimited rewrites cost over a hundred dollars. DVD-R's are about five bucks each for 4.7GB, but they don't have unlimited rewrites. This is going to stay impractical for a while.

EDIT: Wouldn't these be really easy to lose, too? My friend lost his Metroid Fusion gamepak because of the shrinkage, and this is smaller.

ebby · July 23, 2003 1:55AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dog Almighty

EDIT: Wouldn't these be really easy to lose, too? My friend lost his Metroid Fusion gamepak because of the shrinkage, and this is smaller.

You know, my dad uses Click! drives all the time (about 20 of them) and hasn't lost one yet. I'll admit they are fun to use and light but at 40MB each, I run out of space too quickly. (That and the PCMCIA reader dosn't work in Mac laptops. You need a USB adapter.

)

Bring on the Gigabit PocketZips!

matsu · July 23, 2003 8:19AM

I would imagine that the price would come in at about the same as click technology, but Iomega has mentioned this technology going back to 2002, they've now announced it and are trying to get camera/MP3 makers to build it into their products so that you don't have to buy a reader and discs. Your camera would write to the discs, and you just buy the media. Of course, they also will make a PC card and USB drive, bnut the tech itself is pretty interesting if it comes in at the right price.

1GB compact flash goes for about 500-650 Canadian (about 350-450USD)

2GB comapct flash goes for about 1500 Canadian (over 1000USD)

At 1.5GB and fully rewriteable, the DCT disc becomes a real contender if they get it anywhere under 100USD. But I expect that would be very high indeed and that prices would be more like those of click! media, probably initial prices something like 3 for 100.

Either way, that would be a absolute steal for digital camera users and I hope they succeed.

The technology could have legs especially in the alphabet soup of flash memory standards.

The one real issue will be how much iomega wants from 3rd parties in order to license the tech.

malokata · July 23, 2003 8:56AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dog Almighty

The price? How many hundreds of dollars? Sounds like a winner!

750MB Zip disks with unlimited rewrites cost over a hundred dollars. DVD-R's are about five bucks each for 4.7GB, but they don't have unlimited rewrites. This is going to stay impractical for a while.

EDIT: Wouldn't these be really easy to lose, too? My friend lost his Metroid Fusion gamepak because of the shrinkage, and this is smaller.

What's wrong with DVD-RW's?

$10.

matsu · July 23, 2003 9:07AM

I think some are missing the point. The technology is intended for products for which a DVD-r is just too big, like digital cameras and MP3 players. If they come in at about the same price as PocketZip/Clik!, about 10 dollars per disc, they would absolutely destroy any compact media, and even at 30-100 dollars they'd still be a heck of a lot cheaper than the compact flash/micro-drives currently used in cameras.

Floppy discs: the classics never die.

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