22 Aug
2018
22 Aug
'18
11:48 a.m.
On the subject of oddball PC media, does anyone out there have media for
the DTC "Take Ten" cartridge drive? I've got the drive here, still in
original shrink-wrap and packaging, but no media, so I don't have the
faintest idea if it still works.
As the 5.25" cartridges only held 10MB, I suspect this was a
flash-in-the-pan venture. I'd never heard of one back in the day when
everyone was using Bernoulli drives.
--Chuck
23 Aug
23 Aug
12:33 p.m.
According to DTC's 1987 prospectus the Company began limited shipments of its TakeTen
10-megabyte removable-cartridge disk drive in December 1986. The TakeTen is based on
technology developed by Data Technology in collaboration with Eastman Kodak. The storage
cartridge is manufactured by Verbatim Corporation (?Verbatim?), an Eastman Kodak
subsidiary, and incorporates a high-performance flexible magnetic disk encased in a rigid
plastic shell.
The Kodak drive was based on a license from DriveTec
DTC was acquired Qume and changed its name to Qume.
It stopped producing these sorts of drives in 1991
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2018 11:48 AM
To: CCtalk
Subject: DTC TakeTen media?
On the subject of oddball PC media, does anyone out there have media for
the DTC "Take Ten" cartridge drive? I've got the drive here, still in
original shrink-wrap and packaging, but no media, so I don't have the faintest idea if
it still works.
As the 5.25" cartridges only held 10MB, I suspect this was a flash-in-the-pan
venture. I'd never heard of one back in the day when everyone was using Bernoulli
drives.
--Chuck
1:20 p.m.
On 08/23/2018 12:33 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
According to DTC's 1987 prospectus the Company
began limited shipments of its TakeTen 10-megabyte removable-cartridge disk drive in
December 1986. The TakeTen is based on technology developed by Data Technology in
collaboration with Eastman Kodak. The storage cartridge is manufactured by Verbatim
Corporation (?Verbatim?), an Eastman Kodak subsidiary, and incorporates a high-performance
flexible magnetic disk encased in a rigid plastic shell.
The Kodak drive was based on a license from DriveTec
DTC was acquired Qume and changed its name to Qume.
It stopped producing these sorts of drives in 1991
I got that information from a Google search also, but the thing doesn't
take Drivetec media (I have two Drivetec drives--one with Kodak
branding). The TakeTen is also SCSI, where the Drivetecs are
more-or-less conventional floppy interface.
I also seem to recall that the basic Take Ten IP got passed around a
bit--was it Quantum that tried to market it? I don't recall.
I don't recall seeing any media "in the flesh" for the thing, ever.
Kind of odd for something that was in production for 5 years. By 1991,
a removable cartridge drive that held only 10MB was ridiculous.
The thing that really brought Drivetec down was that you had to use
their factory-preformatted embedded-servo floppy media. It was
expensive (about $15 each in 1986). I recall a couple of guys flogging
the drives, media and controllers at one of the "Computer Faires" after
they'd fallen on hard times.
I suspect the same situations prevailed with the ill-fated Caleb UHD
drive--you had to buy the preformatted media, which could (accidentally
or otherwise) be over-written as a normal 3.5" floppy. (I've got a bunch
of those as well--ATA interface).
--Chuck
2:52 p.m.
On Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 2:20 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
The thing that really brought Drivetec down was that
you had to use
their factory-preformatted embedded-servo floppy media. It was
expensive (about $15 each in 1986).
Same with Iomega ZIP disks (introduced 1994, initially $20 medium), but
those were wildly successful.
I don't think requiring factory-formatted media was really the problem. It
seems more likely that the Drivetec disk only having the capacity of seven
floppy disks was the problem.
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