Data Disc

Last updated
Ancomp, Inc.
FormerlyData Disc, Incorporated (1962–1976)
TypePublic
IndustryComputer
FoundedFebruary 1962;61 years ago (1962-02) in Palo Alto, California, United States
Founders
  • Armin Miller
  • Daniel Teichroew
DefunctMarch 1977;46 years ago (1977-03)
FateAcquired by Datapoint

Data Disc, Incorporated, was a public American computer hardware company active from 1962 to 1977 and based in Silicon Valley. The company primarily manufactured hard disk drive units for mainframes and minicomputers. The company also manufactured specialized analog hard disk drives that stored video information for scientific organizations such as NASA as well as the television industry. Data Disc also produced graphical terminals and data tape drives, the latter under their subsidiary Bright Industries, Inc.. In 1976, the company changed their name to Ancomp, Inc., and in 1977, they were acquired by Datapoint.

History

Data Disc was founded in February 1962 in Palo Alto, California by Armin Miller and Daniel Teichroew. [1] [2] Miller had previously worked for the Ampex Corporation, where he developed the basis for modified frequency modulation (MFM), a line code for magnetic data recording that doubled the density and transfer rate of data of the earlier FM encoding scheme. For MFM (also known as Miller modulation code), he was awarded a patent in 1963. [3] [4] In 1965, by which the company employed 26 people, Data Disc moved their headquarters to the Stanford Industrial Park, occupying half of a 36,000-square-foot building formerly occupied by Lockheed. [5] The company gradually expanded their presence to occupy the entire footprint of that building by the late 1960s. [6]

At Data Disc, Miller developed the first low-mass, three-point-suspension read–write head that was later licensed to IBM and used in their influential Winchester drives. [4] [7] This allowed for the head to come into closer contact with the spinning disk, allowing for much higher linear densities than that of Data Disc's competition (3200 bpi versus 300 bpi of their 1960s competitors). [2] With the thin-film, nickel-cobalt-plated platters that Data Disc was using at the time for their drive units, the drives could even be stopped and started arbitrarily, with the heads midway through the platter, without causing a head crash. [5] [2] [4] Data Disc sold their read–write heads to other companies on an OEM basis; companies whose drives used particulate magnetic media instead of thin-film magnetic media often had to lubricate their drives with silicone oil to prevent the heads from sticking to the drives. [4]

Two former Ampex engineers, Fred Pfost and Kurt Machein, joined Data Disc in the mid-1960s; outside of work, they developed the VDR-210CF, a device that could record analog video signals onto a hard disk. This allowed broadcasters to perform instant replays of sports events on the fly, with the ability to jog between frames, replay in slow motion, and pause on a still frame cleanly (the helical scanning heads of videotape decks usually could not perform such trick plays cleanly, and pausing could wear out the signal on the tape due to friction concentrated on one spot on the tape). This device was sold by Machein's company Machtronics and licensed to Data Disc for resale to broadcast entities. [8] [9] Data Disc developed a specialized version of their videodisc recorders for NASA, which were able to store RGB component video signals sequentially and convert them to composite video signals usable by broadcasters. [10] Data Disc's system was used by NASA in 1969 during the Apollo 11 moon landings and the Mariner 6 and 7 missions to Mars. [11] [12] Another application-specific version of their videodisc recorders allowed physicians to make rapid X-rays without film development wait times. [13] Data Disc formalized their video systems unit as a subsidiary in July 1969. [14]

Following a corporate reorganization caused by a sudden doubling of production volume, Miller resigned as president of Data Disc in April 1969, while remaining on the board of directors. He was succeeded as president by William W. Stevens. [15] Data Disc expanded with regional sales offices across the United States in November 1969, [16] and the company left Palo Alto for larger headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, in March 1971. [6] Andrew W. O'Sullivan replaced Stevens as president the following July. [17]

Data Disc filed its initial public offering in mid-1972. In June 1972, Data Disc acquired Bright Industries from Tracor of Austin, Texas, for 5,000 shares of Data Disc's stock, as well as $100,000 in cash. Bright, a maker of traditional data tape drives, was acquired to round out the company's roster of products and make them more enticing to Data Disc's hard drive customers, who often bought tape drives from competitors. [18] Likewise, Data Disc expanded to the field of computer graphics with the release of the Anagraph graphical terminal in November 1972 and the 6600 system in December 1973. [19] [20] In June 1974, by which point the company employed 269 in total, [21] Data Disc raised a 52,000-square-foot building across the street for Bright to occupy. [22] By mid-1975, Data Disc's hard drive sales accounted for 55 percent of their revenues; meanwhile, sales of graphics terminal sales accounted for 15 percent; sales of Bright tape drives for 20 percent; and sales of videodiscs for 10 percent. [23]

In September 1975, Sullivan was succeeded as president by James J. Woo, an 11-year veteran of IBM. [24] One of his first acts as president was renaming Data Disc to Ancomp, Inc., [25] in reflecting its focus away from disk drive units and toward other peripherals and complete computer systems. [26] The name change was finalized in June 1976. [27] In March 1977, Datapoint Corporation of San Antonio, Texas, acquired Ancomp for $2 million in a stock swap. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disk storage</span> General category of storage mechanisms

Disk storage is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a device implementing such a storage mechanism. Notable types are the hard disk drive (HDD) containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive (FDD) and its removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives (ODD) and associated optical disc media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Videotape</span> Magnetic tape used for storing video and sound simultaneously

Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ampex</span> American company that pioneered the use of videotape

Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Ampex operates as Ampex Data Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Delta Information Systems, and consists of two business units. The Silicon Valley unit, known internally as Ampex Data Systems (ADS), manufactures digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments. The Colorado Springs, Colorado, unit, referred to as Ampex Intelligent Systems (AIS), serves as a laboratory and hub for the company's line of industrial control systems, cyber security products and services and its artificial intelligence/machine learning technology.

In computing, a removable media is a data storage media that is designed to be readily inserted and removed from a system. Most early removable media, such as floppy disks and optical discs, require a dedicated read/write device to be installed in the computer, while others, such as USB flash drives, are plug-and-play with all the hardware required to read them built into the device, so only need a driver software to be installed in order to communicate with the device. Some removable media readers/drives are integrated into the computer case, while others are standalone devices that need to be additionally installed or connected.

In computer science, group coded recording or group code recording (GCR) refers to several distinct but related encoding methods for representing data on magnetic media. The first, used in 6250 bpi magnetic tape since 1973, is an error-correcting code combined with a run-length limited (RLL) encoding scheme, belonging into the group of modulation codes. The others are different mainframe hard disk as well as floppy disk encoding methods used in some microcomputers until the late 1980s. GCR is a modified form of a NRZI code, but necessarily with a higher transition density.

In computer data storage, partial-response maximum-likelihood (PRML) is a method for recovering the digital data from the weak analog read-back signal picked up by the head of a magnetic disk drive or tape drive. PRML was introduced to recover data more reliably or at a greater areal-density than earlier simpler schemes such as peak-detection. These advances are important because most of the digital data in the world is stored using magnetic storage on hard disk or tape drives.

In computing, mass storage refers to the storage of large amounts of data in a persisting and machine-readable fashion. In general, the term is used as large in relation to contemporaneous hard disk drives, but it has been used large in relation to primary memory as for example with floppy disks on personal computers.

The RA90 disk drive was the first Digital Equipment Corporation drive to be based on "thin film" technology. Prior to the RA90 all Digital disk drives used "oxide" disks, which were an aluminum disk coated with a polyurethane binder resin containing gamma ferric oxide particles as the recording medium. The 1988-released RA90, which held 1.2GB, was used with controllers implementing the Mass Storage Control Protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DECtape</span>

DECtape, originally called Microtape, is a magnetic tape data storage medium used with many Digital Equipment Corporation computers, including the PDP-6, PDP-8, LINC-8, PDP-9, PDP-10, PDP-11, PDP-12, and the PDP-15. On DEC's 32-bit systems, VAX/VMS support for it was implemented but did not become an official part of the product lineup.

In computer storage, a tape library is a physical area that holds magnetic data tapes. In an earlier era, tape libraries were maintained people known as tape librarians and computer operators and the proper operation of the library was crucial to the running of batch processing jobs. Although tape libraries of this era were not automated, the use of tape management system software could assist in running them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verbatim (brand)</span> CD, DVD and Blu-ray disc brand and former manufacturer

Verbatim is a brand for storage media and flash memory products currently owned by CMC Magnetics Corporation (CMC), a Taiwanese company that is known for optical disc manufacturing. Formerly a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical, the global business and assets of Verbatim were sold to CMC Magnetics in 2019 at an estimated price of $32 million USD.

Memorex Corp. began as a computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer electronics brand specializing in disk recordable media for CD and DVD drives, flash memory, computer accessories and other electronics.

Pertec Computer Corporation (PCC), formerly Peripheral Equipment Corporation (PEC), was a computer company based in Chatsworth, California which originally designed and manufactured peripherals such as floppy drives, tape drives, instrumentation control and other hardware for computers.

Magnetic-tape data storage is a system for storing digital information on magnetic tape using digital recording.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurence Spitters</span> American industrialist and investor

Laurence "Larry" Spitters is an American industrialist and investor who co-founded Memorex.

System Industries, Inc., was an American computer hardware company active from 1968 to 1993. It produced printers and disk drives for minicomputers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Informer Computer Terminals</span> American computer company (1971–2007)

Informer Computer Terminals, Inc., originally Informer, Inc., and later Informer Computer Systems, Inc., was a privately held American computer company active from 1971 to 2007. It manufactured data terminals that could communicate with mainframes and minicomputers, mainly those manufactured by IBM and Digital. It was originally based in Los Angeles, California; in the early 1980s, it moved to Laguna Beach, and in the late 1980s, to Garden Grove.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billings Computer</span>

Billings Computer Corporation was a publicly traded computer company and fully owned subsidiary of Billings Energy Corporation, a defunct American energy company based in Provo, Utah, that specialized in hydrogen fuel. Billings Computer was active between 1977 and 1985 and released several minicomputers and microcomputer systems.

The E'Lite is a small-form-factor microcomputer based on the Zilog Z80B microprocessor released by Barrington International Corporation in 1982. It served as the market introduction of Irwin Magnetic Systems's long-awaited 510 Winchester tape drives.

References

  1. ↑ "Data Disc Inc. names Stevens new president". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 11. April 21, 1969 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 3 "In the Picture". Datamation. Technical Publishing. 26 (2): 164. February 1980 – via the Internet Archive.
  3. ↑ Khurshudov, Andrei (2001). The Essential Guide to Computer Data Storage: From Floppy to DVD. Prentice Hall. p. 85. ISBN   9780130927392 – via Google Books.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Daniel, Eric D.; C. Denis Mee; Mark H. Clark (1999). Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years. IEEE Press. p. 289. ISBN   0780347099 – via the Internet Archive.
  5. 1 2 "Data storage company moves to new quarters". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 6. March 4, 1965 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 "Data Disc Inc. to consolidate". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 6. March 29, 1971 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ "Armin Miller". The Modesto Bee: F-8. April 11, 1997 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Hammar, Peter; Bob Wilson (September 12, 2023). "Culture of Innovation and Technical Achievement at Ampex". StorageNewsletter. Archived from the original on September 28, 2023.
  9. ↑ "Disc Stores TV Pictures". Redwood City Tribune: 21. September 21, 1966 – via Google Books.
  10. ↑ Scandling, Marge (July 15, 1969). "Technology behind the moonshot". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 15 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Peninsula firms supply Mars vehicle equipment". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 3. July 31, 1969 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Data Disc gets large display system contract". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 7. June 11, 1970 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "Medican X ray 'instant replay' device developed". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 7. September 18, 1969 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Data Disc Inc. forms video systems unit". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 7. July 17, 1969 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Data Disc reorganizes division". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 7. March 7, 1969 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Data Disc Inc. sets up sales organization". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 11. November 10, 1969 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "Data Disc names acting president". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 12. June 30, 1971 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ "Data Disc buys Texas maker of computer products". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 7. June 6, 1972 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "Data Disc Adds Color to Display". Computerworld. CW Communications. VI (48): 33. November 29, 1972 – via Google Books.
  20. ↑ "Data Disc Graphic Display System Interfaces with CDC 1700 Computers". Computerworld. IDG Publications. VII (50): 15. December 12, 1973 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ "Data Disc lays off 47 employees". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 8. September 5, 1974 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ "Data Disc building". The San Francisco Examiner: 59. June 19, 1974 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ Upton, Molly (November 19, 1975). "At Data Disc, Trend to Hybrid Disks Seen Developing". Computerworld. CW Communications. IX (47): 50 – via Google Books.
  24. ↑ "Data Disc, Inc. names executive". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 9. September 23, 1975 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ↑ "Name change". The Argus: 11. June 17, 1976 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ↑ "Data Disc changes name to Ancomp Inc". The Peninsula Times Tribune: 8. June 17, 1976 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ↑ "Now it's Ancomp". The San Francisco Examiner: 61. June 17, 1976 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ↑ "Acquisitions". Computerworld. CW Communications. XI (10): 48. March 7, 1977 – via Newspapers.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.