DTC TakeTen media?

[Chuck Guzis]

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