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Extreme Electronics

Just found this...

Does anyone remember these ? :)

I'd be interested in a drive if anyone can spare one. (I realise they are incredibly rare)

@magnetic_tape @NanoRaptor I'd appreciate a photo, if I can't get a real one :)

@Extelec @magnetic_tape look @NanoRaptor up, and let's talk about "real" and "photo" again 😉

@anthony I can confirm its quite dense, not sure if it would pass the bar as high density though. :)

@Extelec if they were more triangular they'd be begging to be 3D, wouldn't they? Or is that reserved for floppy spheres?

@anthony are about 3mm deep, so technically 3D

@Extelec @NanoRaptor it’s almost but not quite something right out of the prop department for Battlestar Galactica

@steely_glint @Sonikku @Extelec @NanoRaptor Funnily enough, they were exclusively used in the development of the original E.L.I.T.E. - the design of the Cobra MkIII is a little nod to the geometry.

@Extelec @NanoRaptor I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Sony was experimenting with a Mavica that could take these... don't know if it ever even made it into the prototype stage though.

@billgoats @NanoRaptor I think they gave up with this form factor, because it pushed the focal plane too far forward from the sensor, making it only take good photos in really good light. Swapping to SD cards gave them another 1-2" of space to correct the issue.

@Extelec @billgoats @NanoRaptor Actually, Sony found out that the design was an open standard, so they dropped it.

@Extelec I never saw anything like this. I've seen 8", 5.25", 3.5" and zip drives, but never saw anything close to that. What is it?

@lyda @Extelec
Well before my curiosity sends me on a search I'm wondering if this might work in a normal 3.5 inch drive.

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@the5thColumnist @lyda I'm not sure. Shame there is only one available, I think you would need three, or maybe get away with two, if you ignore parity.

@the5thColumnist @lyda @Extelec did you see the date of the article (it’s in April)?

@Extelec Unfortunately the drive I have is a left handed one, so your right handed disc won't work. No wonder they didn't take off.

@Extelec

Am I missing the joke if I suggest that this isn't real?

@Extelec I saw a lot of hardware since ~1990 but never these 🤔
Is the metal cover moveable?
The write protection switch looks like drawn with a black marker. Has this a real capacity or is it meant as an ice scraper? :D

@Gonzo @Extelec i have definitely scraped a windshield with a cassette. Never thought to use the troppies in the back seat

@Extelec

That I-can't-believe-it's-not-IA-generated floppy disk reminded me of a Green Day CD (I think it was green day?) that was not circular, but "brain shaped". They got away with it because of the 700 MB it used something like 50, so all the tracks where on the inner circles of the CD.

It blew my mind at the time. And my cd player.

@excess Not that item exists and is actually in my hand.

Im sure the brain shaped disk would vibrate a bit though :)

@Extelec
Yes, I can see you holding it with your I-can't-believe-it's-not-IA-generated-3-fingered-hand :P

Just fucking with ya', I believe you.

And yes, they were incredibly unbalanced and caused problems, I guess that's why they never took off.

@Extelec everything about that design makes my head hurt, i know it;s a floppy disk but why is it that shape

@jedileah @Extelec it's not real, it's drawn or painted on.

@hotkey @Extelec one i decided to open the image properly and have a look, i realised it's 3d printed

@Extelec you could get the SCSI drive to work with Amiga with some custom driver software. I heard someone had it in their A4000 for storing files on their BBS.

@mmu_man @NanoRaptor The original concept wasn't mine, not sure if originally it was a Nanoraptor, or someone else doing similar stuff, I just decided to build one IRL :)

@elixx The extra side is for the parity bits :)

@Extelec I found myself starting to count fingers and dismiss it as AI art before reading through the comments 😂

@Extelec I fought the reflex to count the fingers to check whether it's machine generated :D

@Extelec I have two of these drives, family heirlooms, and extremely rare, tho.
Like "division by zero" rare.

@Extelec this looks like an image of a 1.44 floppy generated by a bad ai (or: any of the current ones)

@Extelec

Hey! Old school day!! Had an old Quadraphonic XL (PC Clone) that had one of those drives. Wrote my first program in the included language: BAASIC.

Solid system. Was ahead of its time.

Unfortunately. Its big mistake was that it was an “all-in-one” that included both a Betamax and a keyboard with the notoriously fickle “AlphaMate”, a keyboard where the keys were in alphabetical order.

Very efficient once you got used to it(made you fast!), but the skill wasn’t very portable.

@Extelec

Ah, those! I don't think the drive ever made it to production, though. The boring square ones beat it with much better licensing terms. (Probably a win in general; I remember reading that those had reliability problems.)

The original demo prototypes for the FIRST computer (the 16-bit Scheme machine that got completely killed by the Amiga) used them and they were in the early marketing materials, which is why I know about them. (Teenaged me wanted a FIRST *so* much.)

@Extelec
On top side there is "CH" as it was only legal to use in Switzerland.

@Extelec If that's real then @NanoRaptor may as well just retire.