DataPlay
| Incorporation | |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Headquarters |
 Longmont, Colorado, USA |
Key people |
Bill Almon, Jr., CEO and President Jeff Roberts, CFO |
| Products |
DataPlay Engine DataPlay 500MB Optical Media |
Number of employees | ~30 (2006) |
| Website | www.DataPlay.com |
DataPlay is an optical disc system developed by DataPlay Inc. and released to the consumer market in 2002. Using very small (32mm diameter) disks enclosed in a protective cartridge storing 250MB per side, DataPlay was intended primarily for portable music playback, including both pre-recorded disks and user-recorded disks (and disks that combined pre-recorded information with a writable area).
DataPlay included an elaborate digital rights management system designed to allow consumers to "unlock" extra pre-recorded content on the disk, after the initial purchase.
The recorded music industry was generally supportive of DataPlay and a small number of a pre-recorded DataPlay disks were released, including a Britney Spears album. However, as a pre-recorded format DataPlay was a failure.
There were very few products seen on the market that could do data "USB Drive" most notably the Topy Mini Writer which was $130 (USD) which housed an optical pickup unit "Picture # 4" and a USB interface board to attach it to the host "Computer" allowing the use of Dataplay discs for use just like we use cd-r discs today. The other most noted products were the Iriver IDP-100 and the MTV Video Device named MTV FLIP which both housed the prototyped based model "Picture # 2.
The optical drive pickup unit (or engine) "Picture #2" was given only to developers and has been referred to as TLA11-00143 "only in the form of Picture # 4". This is the unit found in any manufactured product with the official DataPlay logo on it "Some have no tops and differ from the one in the Iriver IDP-100 "Picture # 2" but all contain the same engine. The one shown in the Picture # 4 is 1 of 56 never used in the package optical units that has never been in a device and of the private collection of Donald McClintick which has drives of other types also(such as the one Picture # 1,2,3-5 and others not pictured).
Names: DaTARIUS DPHI Dataplay
As of 1/14/2012 it is extremely hard to obtain any Dataplay items as they have not been produced in some time; so it will be a rare occasion unless found on a surplus or auction site to obtain Dataplay items..
