Talk:SuperDisk
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I just noticed that there's another, totally different LS-120 page describing the same thing. Perhaps the info here should be merged with that page? -lee 06:08, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Old LS-120 article. Some info I couldn't really verify (and some that's wrong), so I put it here until things can be sorted out better... —Mulad 19:56, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
LS-120 is an advanced replacement for the floppy disk drive. Using the same media as existing 1.44MB floppies, LS-120 adds an accurate alignment system and advanced encoding to increase the capacity of a single diskette to 120MB. Many have touted it as the logical replacement for the hard drive, but it appears that the increasing capacity of solid-state devices such as USB keydrives have largely rendered LS-120 unmarketable.
The normal floppy disk has to deal with a number of mechanical problems that mean it is forced to store considerably less information than is theoretically possible. The main problems encountered are mechanical, the diskette surface cannot be accurately placed under the read/write heads, and therefore the "tracks", concentric rings of information, have to be much wider than needed.
Using a head-placement mechanism guided by a laser servo driving a much smaller head, LS-120 increases the number of tracks from to 2490 tracks per inch. The head also has the ability to read ordinary 3.5" floppy disk.
Normal floppy-disk controllers are not capable of addressing this number of tracks, and the LS-120 therefore uses the 40-pin IDE connection which is also used by hard-disk and CD-ROM.
The LS-120 standard was initially developed by Imation Corporation, Compaq Computer Corporation, Matsushita-Kotobuki Industires Ltd (also refereed to as Panasonic)and OR Technology. It has appeared as an add-on product for some time, but is rarely seen built-in to new machines. It has never reached crticial mass, largely for this reason, and is caught in an odd market space where computer manufacturers are unwilling to use it because no-one else does.
[edit] Automatic ejection?
I've heard rumors that LS-120 drives are able, like Macintosh floppy drives, to eject the diskettes themselves, rather than having to press a button. Can anyone verify this? I myself am interested for the casemodding opportunities (namely, "stealthed" or Mac-style drives). Vintagejonny 05:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- That's how it works on our LS-120 connected to our Macintosh.
- Atlant 14:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Correct, it is a pure 'software' eject. The button is not a physical eject button like on standard 3.5" drives, and ejection can be locked by the OS. (As it is on a Macintosh by default, requiring an OS-based eject command.) On Windows, you can software eject by right-clicking on the drive in "My Computer", and selecting "Eject" from the drop-down menu. (On some setups of Windows XP and Vista, you may see an 'Eject' button in the 'Tasks' list on the left of the window, or in the toolbar on the top of the window. This works as well.) And the more commonly used term is "software eject", not "automatic eject" 71.193.207.217 03:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC) (User:ehurtley, just not logged in on this computer.)
[edit] Confirm Removal of line:
This line sounds quite outdated...
Today, the format faces heavy competition from recordable CDs and DVDs, as well as solid state USB keydrives.
...compared to this:
Matsushita continued development of the technology and released the LS-240, which was still fairly available in Asia and Australia until 2003 but is now quite rare. It has double the capacity and the added feature of being able to format regular floppy disks to 32 MB capacity. However, this higher density comes at a price—the entire disk must be rewritten any time a change is made, much like early CD-RW media.
--Debug-GED 08:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)