FastBack

FastBack is a software application developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for backing up IBM PC and Macintosh computers. It was originally written by Fifth Generation Systems Inc, a company located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When the company wanted to expand into the Apple market they purchased and rebranded a product from TouchStone Software Corporation.

The original FastBack was unique in the industry in that it was able to read from a computer hard drive and write to the floppy drive simultaneously using the full capability of the dual-channel DMA chip found in personal computers of that time. When combined with compression techniques and a proprietary disk format that got more data on each floppy disk, this easily made FastBack the fastest computer backup program of the time.

Version history

In 1987, FastBack Plus 1.0 for DOS was released. This version, or subsequent DOS versions, was released with an unconditional guarantee against harm resulting from use of the software in the terms and conditions. The guarantee contrasted itself with industry norms.

In 1991, FastBack Plus 3.02 for DOS was released.^[1]

In February 1992 the company released FastBack Plus 1.0 for Windows, written for PCs running Windows 3.0.^[2]

FastBack Plus 2.0 was included with Novell DOS 7 in 1994.

FastBack II^[3] was bundled with Drive 2.4 to provide read/write compatibility with most Macintosh 3.5" floppy disk formats.

Reception

BYTE in 1989 listed Fastback Plus as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards, stating that "if you have a hard drive, we recommend this package".^[4]

References

External links

• Article in 1993 Smart Computing - "Utility Software: Your PC's Life Preserver"
• A note by Dave Decker entitled "Beware of FastBack" in Macking 31 by Michael Pearce in the February 1998 Computer Bits