Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!pp!hi3!mtarlton
From: mtarlton@hi3.ACA.MCC.COM (Mark Tarlton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Comments on NeXT.
Message-ID: <42@hi3.ACA.MCC.COM>
Date: 29 Sep 88 22:35:57 GMT
References: <30260@bbn.COM>
Organization: MCC, Austin, TX
Lines: 31

From article <30260@bbn.COM>, by dtani@bbn.com (Dan Tani):
> From article <9291@swan.ulowell.edu>, by rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers):
>> 
>>      I assume that by "erasable" they mean that the optical disk can be
>> erased, but can it be re-written?  I dont believe anyone has done this
>> before, except for the Tandy thor drive, but that could only be written to

From EE Times, May 30, 1988 (reprinted without permission)

"Tokyo - Sony Corp.  will start marketing in Japan a 5 1/4" erasable,
magneto-optical disk subsystem as external memory for its News
workstations in late October.
...
The capacity of the system is 297 Mbytes for a one-sided disk,
and 594 Mbytes on a double-sided disk.  The unit is connected to the
News system via the Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI).
...
The format is : 31 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector and 18,751
tracks per side, with a revolution speed of 2,400 rpm.  The average
latency time is 12.5 ms, and the seek time is an average of 90 ms. 

User data transfer speed is 640 kbytes/s (continuous) and 1.2 Mbytes/s
(burst). 
        -Miyoko Sakurai  "

This may be the unit that NeXT is using in their system.

mark tarlton

mtarlton@mcc.com
"These opinions aren't even my own"