What I never got was why MD were never pushed as main rw disc drives on PC. IIRC Rewritable MDs were mainstream long before CD-R and it would have filled an immense need to replace floppy disks at the time (I love vintage and nostalgia, but floppies had way too much io errors, and the speed was.. not really there).
Maybe there were real technical reasons why data MD drives never caught up (too much cpu power required to handle the data ?) ..
Those applications seem pretty weak. In a similar timeframe I seem to recall possessing a standalone dictionary/crossword solver device, and a five-language translator/dictionary. Both of which were much more compact and presumably had small, solid-state data in ROM chips. The monochrome, text-first Data Discman software looks similar to the output of those basic devices.
I suspect the problem with the Data Discman was weak multimedia capabilities, compared to the what can fit on a CD-ROM, in either its API or what the hardware could push. If the software of the Data Discman had been more like Microsoft Encarta, it might have wowed people.
Sony's history of media formats and devices is fascinating. I keep thinking that at some stage they're going to stop creating new ones, but somehow never seems to happen.
This goes into just 6 of the media formats, but there are so many more.
I have not one but two Data Discmans, unfortunately neither works. I believe both need to be re-capped and disassembling them (correctly) is a bigger task than I'm interested in at the moment. I'm going to have to see if I can get the emulator running and try out the discs I have.
The Data Discman fascinated me ever since I first saw mention of it in a magazine. This was the early 90s so CDs were still Brobdingnagian compared to other storage media at the time. A portable device that could carry an encyclopedia? Amazing! To me at the time they were a Star Trek technology made real.
As an aside I still love Sony's consumer electronics industrial design from the 90s. It was a great intersection of functional and attractive.
What I never got was why MD were never pushed as main rw disc drives on PC. IIRC Rewritable MDs were mainstream long before CD-R and it would have filled an immense need to replace floppy disks at the time (I love vintage and nostalgia, but floppies had way too much io errors, and the speed was.. not really there).
Maybe there were real technical reasons why data MD drives never caught up (too much cpu power required to handle the data ?) ..
Those applications seem pretty weak. In a similar timeframe I seem to recall possessing a standalone dictionary/crossword solver device, and a five-language translator/dictionary. Both of which were much more compact and presumably had small, solid-state data in ROM chips. The monochrome, text-first Data Discman software looks similar to the output of those basic devices.
I suspect the problem with the Data Discman was weak multimedia capabilities, compared to the what can fit on a CD-ROM, in either its API or what the hardware could push. If the software of the Data Discman had been more like Microsoft Encarta, it might have wowed people.
Sony's history of media formats and devices is fascinating. I keep thinking that at some stage they're going to stop creating new ones, but somehow never seems to happen.
This goes into just 6 of the media formats, but there are so many more.
https://www.slashgear.com/1675900/discontinued-sony-formats-...
A more recent example: Archival Disc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Disc
The author should really upload these to the Internet Archive.
The emulator (which seems like it's for DOS) seems a strange thing to include on the disc:
TFA states they will do so once they receive the expected takedown notice from Sony.
I have not one but two Data Discmans, unfortunately neither works. I believe both need to be re-capped and disassembling them (correctly) is a bigger task than I'm interested in at the moment. I'm going to have to see if I can get the emulator running and try out the discs I have.
The Data Discman fascinated me ever since I first saw mention of it in a magazine. This was the early 90s so CDs were still Brobdingnagian compared to other storage media at the time. A portable device that could carry an encyclopedia? Amazing! To me at the time they were a Star Trek technology made real.
As an aside I still love Sony's consumer electronics industrial design from the 90s. It was a great intersection of functional and attractive.
If memory serves, they have a notable mention in the Niven-Pournelle novel _Fallen Angels_.