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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill D'Angelo who wrote (1477)	11/12/1997 11:24:00 AM
From: Gary Spiers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Nobody really knows what it is about yet but I can guess one of two (well three) things: 1) A new drive for use with these devices. 2) An interface card between a zip drive and a camera/palmtop that uses the compact flash slot. If no.1 there is still the issue that Iomega only makes rotating storage media - which is inherently fragile - ok for desktops, laptops where the device is used on a stationary surface but not for cameras and palmtops that may be used on the move. I also do not see how a rotating media of any reasonable size could fit in the compact flash form factor [could be wrong though :-)] and so this would be an addon dongle - very inconvenient for camera usage :-) The other issue of a rotating media device in a compact flash form factor is that it requires power and the AA batteries in many cameras would not last long! If 2) there is still the problem that if the interface card is in the camera slot then there there is a cord between the camera and the zip drive - not convenient to use and a zip drive+battery pack is not exactly my idea of a small form factor either - why have a pocketable camera when the storage medium (though large capacity) requires a shoulder bag or something similar? I guess a third option is that it is a combined compact flash/zip drive so that a person can put data on a small flashcard and then transfer the card to this device and move the data from the flashcard to a zip disk - this means that people who need a lot of portable storage (but not quick access to the stored data) don't have to buy large expensive flashcards. I am not too happy with any of my suggestions - they all seem flawed products but its something to chew on pending any real information. Gary