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From: asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: New OD prices (high!)
Message-ID: <5642@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 90 17:38:38 GMT
References: <270282C1.22993@orion.oac.uci.edu> <8619@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Organization: Purdue University
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In <8619@helios.TAMU.EDU> mcguire@cs.tamu.edu (Tim McGuire) writes:

>I really doubt that you're going to find the optical disks much cheaper
>than that for a while.  The nice folks from NeXT didn't say this exactly,
>but I gathered that Canon hasn't been developing further markets for the 
>OD that would increase the production and lower the price.  I further suspect
>that this is the major (and perhaps the only) reason you aren't seeing some 
>sort of optical technology on the new cubes/slabs.

Actually, from talking to one of the reps, NeXT decided to go for
working on speed, and having fast harddrives.  The OD will still be
supported and sold, but they are going to let it go more of the way of
third party, and let them handle it.  For instance, Iomega has a new
drive called Lasersafe that is 610MB MO, and is a SCSI device.  So if
you want OD power, ya can look at that.  It's pricier than the Canon,
but it's also faster (from what I understand) and at 610MB, a tad bit
better storage size, no?  It's also uses the ISO standard (whatever
one that is).  The NeXT guy also said that Sony was doing the best
with OD technology, but that wasn't on the market, or something (I
forget, maybe it was too pricey).  Anyways, I'd personally wait for a
standard to emerge, then you'll be able to move HUGE quantities of
data from machine to machine.  Of course, waiting for a standard might
be equivalent to waiting for a snow ball fight in hell.