"Whilst conventional actuator companies like ALPS, Precision Microdrives, AAC Technologies only produce hardware, Lofelt is the only company delivering the complete hardware, software and user-experience solution, ready for mass-production," a spokesperson for the startup tells me.
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These were never produced, probably due to lack of demand. It was however possible to connect ZX Microdrives to a QL by putting a twist in the cable. In addition to the QL versions, dual internal Microdrives were included in the related ICL One Per Desk system (also badged as the Merlin Tonto and Telecom Australia Computerphone). These drives were re- engineered by ICL for greater reliability, and used a format incompatible with both ZX and QL Microdrives.
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The Sinclair QL featured dual internal Microdrives Microdrives were also used as the native storage medium of the Sinclair QL, which incorporated two internal drives. These were very similar to the ZX Microdrive, but used a different logical format, allowing each cartridge to hold at least 100 kB. Mechanically the drives were similar however they ran slightly slower, and had a take-up acceleration start instead of the instant start of the ZX Spectrum drives, putting less strain on the cartridges. The QL also included a Microdrive expansion bus allowing the attachment of up to six external QL Microdrives.
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By 2015, Microdrives were viewed as obsolete, having been overtaken by solid-state flash media in read/write performance, storage capacity, durability, and price.
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In 2000, Creative released the 6GB hard drive based Creative NOMAD Jukebox. The name borrowed the jukebox metaphor popularised by Remote Solution, also used by Archos. Later players in the Creative NOMAD range used microdrives rather than laptop drives.
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The ZX8302 was a ULA integrated circuit designed for the Sinclair QL microcomputer. Also known as the QL's "Peripheral Chip", it interfaced the CPU to the Microdrives, QLAN local area network interface and RS-232 ports (transmit only) and also provided a real-time clock. The ZX8302 was IC23 on the QL motherboard.
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Consumer Electronics ATA (CE-ATA) is an interface standard for the connection of storage devices and hosts in consumer electronic device such as mobile and handheld devices. One of the primary goals is to standardize connections for small form factor hard disk drives such as 1-inch Microdrives. The standard is maintained by CE-ATA Workgroup.
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The first supports xD-Picture Card, the other supports Compact Flash Type II Microdrives up to 2GB. Some Compact Flash memory cards will not work. Fujifilm made two conversion lens kits available, a 1.50x tele conversion lens and a 0.79x wide-angle conversion lens, both of which come with a 55 mm thread diameter adapter extension tube.
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After seeing BurgerTime and hearing that Sinclair were talking about the release of an electric car, Jon Ritman decided to combine the concepts to create Bear Bovver. He began to use a more complex development system, joining 2 Spectrums and 3 Microdrives. He developed on one Spectrum and tested the game on the other. This allowed the games being developed to be larger.
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IBM and Hitachi Microdrive harddisk drives, with an American quarter for size comparison. Inside a 1-inch Seagate drive Microdrive is a registered trademark for miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots. The release of similar drives by other makers led to them often being referred to as "microdrives" too.
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Recovery Toolbox for Flash Repairs deleted files from various storage media with FAT file systems, including SD, CF, MMC and other memory cards, smart media cards, IBM MicroDrives, Flash and USB drives, digital cameras, and floppy disks. Recovery Toolbox for RAR Repairs data from damaged RAR archives. Supports all existing RAR formats and compression ratios, password-protected archives, and archives stored on corrupted media. Recovery Toolbox for Excel Repairs corrupted Microsoft Excel files.
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This led to problems when receiving data, but not when transmitting. A wedge-shaped device fitting underneath the ZX Spectrum, the ZX Interface 1 contained of ROM comprising the control software for the Microdrives, an RS-232 port and network interface. This extended the error handler in the Sinclair BASIC to allow extra keywords to be used. As this became an official standard, other developers quickly used this mechanism to create language extensions to Sinclair BASIC.
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Older digital camcorders record video onto tape digitally, microdrives, hard drives, and small DVD-RAM or DVD-Rs. Newer machines since 2006 record video onto flash memory devices and internal solid-state drives in MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format. Because these codecs use inter-frame compression, frame-specific editing requires frame regeneration, additional processing and may lose picture information. Codecs storing each frame individually, easing frame- specific scene editing, are common in professional use.
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Ben Cheese (1955 - 21 January 2001) was a British engineer who worked on Sinclair's ZX Microdrives. Authors Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy, in their book Sinclair and the "Sunrise" Technology, write that "it seems only fair to note that it was the tenacity and imagination of R&D; staffer Ben Cheese that got the product [i.e., the Microdrive] to the market". When Sinclair was sold, Cheese formed a company called Flare Technology with two other former Sinclair engineers, John Mathieson and Martin Brennan.
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A pair of 1gb IBM Microdrives, one with a type II PC Card adapter Type-II and above PC Card devices use two rows of 34 sockets, and have a 16- or 32-bit interface. They are thick. Type-II cards introduced I/O support, allowing devices to attach an array of peripherals or to provide connectors/slots to interfaces for which the host computer had no built-in support. For example, many modem, network, and TV cards accept this configuration.
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Microdrives used tiny (44 × 34 × 8 mm including protective cover) cartridges containing a 5-metre (200-inch) endless loop of magnetic tape, 1.9 mm wide, driven at 76 cm/second (30 in/second); thus performing a complete circuit in approximately 8 seconds. The cartridges held a minimum of 85 kB when formatted on a ZX Microdrive (exact capacity depended on the number of "bad" sectors found and the precise speed of the Microdrive motor when formatting). The data retrieval rate was 15 kB/s, i.e., 120 kbit/s.
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The Creative MuVo (in some markets, formerly Creative NOMAD MuVo) is a range of digital audio players produced by Creative Technology Limited, launched in 2002. Most models in the MuVo range use flash memory for storing data; the only exceptions being the MuVo² and MuVo² FM models which use microdrives. The distinguishing feature of the range, beginning with the original MuVo and carried on to newer models, is that the players are split into two unequal parts. The smaller part functions as the audio player, bearing all of the controls, inputs and outputs, internal microphone, and a male USB-A plug.
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A case in point was the abortive Pandora portable Spectrum, whose ULA had the high resolution video mode pioneered in the TS2068. Pandora had a flat-screen monitor and Microdrives and was intended to be Sinclair's business portable. After Amstrad bought the computer business of Sinclair Research, Sir Clive retained the rights to the Pandora project, and it evolved into the Cambridge Computer Z88, launched in 1987. Starting in 1984, Timex of Portugal developed and produced several Timex branded computers, including the Timex Computer 2048, highly compatible with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, which was very successful in both Portugal and Poland.
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From the QL, the OPD borrowed the 68008 CPU, ZX8301/8302 ULAs, 128 KB of RAM and dual Microdrives (re-engineered by ICL for greater reliability) but not the 8049 Intelligent Peripheral Controller. Unique to the OPD was a "telephony module" incorporating an Intel 8051 microcontroller (which also controlled the keyboard), two PSTN lines and a V.21/V.23 modem, plus a built-in telephone handset and a TI TMS5220 speech synthesiser (for automatic answering of incoming calls). The OPD was supplied with either a 9-inch monochrome (white) monitor or a 14-inch colour monitor.
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Rio Avalon unreleased model The Carbon was announced on August 2, 2004. The first 500 Carbons were produced as a Limited Edition with a unique serial number (1-500) that was laser engraved into the polished steel (back) side of the player. The initial Carbon was silver with a 5 GB drive and retailed US $249.99, same as the iPod Mini with 4 GB. An off-white version called the Carbon Pearl was next, with a 5GB drive at first and then a 6 GB drive later as the price of Microdrives fell. This was followed by the 2.5 GB ce2100 (black) and ce2110 (light green) which offered reduced features and cost.
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Wafadrive packaging Rotronics Wafadrive shown with two Wafa tapes, a blank 64 kB and software release tape Front and back of a Rotronics 64 kB Wafa tape The Rotronics Wafadrive was a continuous tape loop storage (like conventional magnetic tape but arranged in a loop) peripheral launched in late 1984 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 8-bit home computer, intended to compete with Sinclair's ZX Interface 1 and ZX Microdrive. The Wafadrive comprised two continuous loop "stringy floppy" tape drives, an RS-232 interface and Centronics parallel port. The drives could run at two speeds: High speed (for seeking) and low speed (for reading/writing, which was significantly slower than that of Microdrives). The cartridges (or "wafers"), the same as those used in Entrepo stringy floppy devices for other microcomputers, were physically larger than Microdrive cartridges.
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