Floppyless future? Caleb Tech bets not

BOULDER ? Considering the pace of change in today’s high-tech world, it would seem that the floppy disk is on its way to becoming a relic doomed to collect dust on museum shelves along with 8-inch disks and cassette tapes.

But not if Caleb Technology has its way. The Boulder company has come out with a new, 144 megabyte floppy disk that has 100 times the memory capacity of the original 1.44 MB disks.

“There is a market for them because floppy drives have been in computers for the last 20 years,´ said Toan Doan, chief technology officer of Caleb Technology, and the mind behind the creation of the disk.

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Doan said $100 million worth of personal computers are being sold each year, and every PC has a floppy disk drive. Even owners of iMacs, personal computers that do not have floppy disk drives, can purchase a floppy drive for their computers, he added.

“They put out external drives for Macs,” Doan said. “It’s like when you buy a printer. It doesn’t have a cable, but you can purchase a cable.”

Floppy disks still are important as backup in case a computer crashes, he said.

Doan said floppy disks have many practical applications that other types of disks or CD-ROMs do not. “If people need something quick, like a resume, they may already have it on a floppy,” he said. And floppies are much less expensive than other types of disks, he added.

Doan said floppy disks have many uses comparable to other types of disks. They can be used to copy music or store wedding photos. The disks also can be used in digital cameras. “If you take a picture, where do you put it if the hard drive is full?”

Many schools are equipped with computers that have floppy disk drives, Doan said. “Children need floppy disks so they can bring their homework to school, he said.

Caleb Technology began developing the 144 MB floppy disk in 1996 and obtained $6 million for the project from Singapore, Doan said. The improved floppy disk was first made available last November.

Doan said the disk received a good reception among customers. “We’re doing OK. We’re still looking for an investment.” Doan would not disclose how many of the disks have been sold.

Opinions about the future of the floppy disk drive and floppy disks differ.

A Web site called The Depot reports that while replacements for floppy disk drives such as the Zip drive have become popular, none of the high-capacity drives has been compatible with existing floppies.

In the next year, however, customers can expect to see a new generation of floppy drives with capacities as high as 120 megabytes, according to information on the Web site. The new drives still will be able to read existing floppy disks, but they’ll work much faster. Some manufacturers will begin to incorporate the LS-120 drives into their computers soon. And as production lines ramp up, the disks are predicted to become popular items for all computer users, according to the site.

John MacGilvary, chief analyst at DatePro Information Services Group in Delran, N.J., predicts the floppy disk will experience a gradual phaseout as new technologies unfold. “Software is rarely shipped on diskettes, as most vendors prefer the cheaper, higher capacity, higher reliability CD-ROM disks, and intra-office data swapping is done over networks, requiring no diskettes of any kind,” he said. “With the exception of petty duties such as driver installations and minor data backups, floppy drives remain largely unused.”

The iMac, which came out in 1998, is one of the first personal computers to have no floppy diskette port. “We’ve done research and found that floppy drives aren’t used very much,´ said Nathalie Welch, a spokeswoman for Apple. “People are using much more modern methods of file transfer. They are e-mailing files back and forth. They’re not using the sneakernet anymore.”

The sneakernet is computer slang for physically moving files via diskette rather than electronically.

Peter Hartsook, an independent analyst, agreed that floppy drives are becoming obsolete. “Most software these days comes on a CD-ROM drive, and transferring files is what the Internet is for,” he said. “The iMac has got networking and a modem for just that. And as you’re dealing with larger files, you’re going to be sending files that won’t fit on floppies anyway. The only thing you need a floppy for is to back up your software. And you won’t need that because you’ll have software on a CD-ROM.”

Greg Thorpe, purchasing manager for Sacramento-based Halted Specialties Co., which sells computer parts and accessories, including diskettes, said he has seen a dramatic decline in the sale of floppy disks at his store.

“This isn’t the beginning of the end of the diskette,” he said. “The end began five years ago, with the CD-ROM. We still sell diskettes, but we now go through 50 in the same time we used to go through 300 or 400.”

Diskettes still have their functions, however. “People still trade data between machines. I modem files most of the time, but every once in awhile I put it on a disk and take it to someone, but that’s happening less and less,” Thorpe said. “There still needs to be a cheap read-write device. Operating systems still need to be put into the computer, and the diskette will still be it until they can do that.”

Reid Goldsborough, a syndicated columnist and author of “Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway,´ said floppy disks still are used because they are inexpensive, reliable and portable, but the days of the old floppy disk are numbered. “Were it not for inertia on the part of consumers and conservatism on the part of manufacturers, floppies would be resting in peace right now,” he said.

Goldsborough said while the Superdisk and Zip drives are doing well now, other products, such as Caleb Technology’s 144 MB floppy disk, should not be ruled out as a replacement to the old floppy disks.

Jesse Berst, editorial director of ZDNet AnchorDesk, said Caleb Technology’s higher-capacity floppy disks may emerge as a successor to the old floppies because they are less expensive than Zip disks and other alternatives and because they can read and write 1.44 MB floppies, but a small producer like Caleb Technology will likely have trouble competing with larger corporations.

“Upstarts Caleb Technology and Swan Instruments arrive late to the party,” he said. “Small firms need serious help if they want to win major market share.”