Plus Development
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Plus Development Corporation was a majority-owned subsidiary of Quantum Corporation and invented the Hardcard hard disk drive on a card which started a wave of companies producing similar products in the late 1980s.[1]
History
Plus Development was formed in October, 1983, by a handful of Quantum employees, led by Stephen Berkley (President), Dave Brown (Engineering), and Joel Harrison (Architecture), based on a conversation over dinner between Nolan Bushnell and Quantum President James Patterson that Quantum needed to start building products for the end user market. Their goal was to provide a simplified upgrade path for the newly released IBM PCs which did not come with a hard drive.[1] The company started with the name Bits in Space, later changed it to BBH Corp (using the initials for Berkley, Brown, and Harrison), and finally standing with Plus Development Corporation.[2]
Product Development
Over the two years after Plus Development was launched, the team was working on some major industry firsts:[3]
- A hard disk that installed in an ISA PC card expansion slot (not a PCMCIA slot not invented at that time)
- Host controller integrated with the hard disk printed circuit board (PCB)
- A drive controller chipset cheaper than any previously built
- Hard drive thickness of only 1”
- Consumer-focused installation of a hard disk
Competition
Within one year of the Plus Development introduction of Hardcard, 28 companies had released similar products. At that time, all of the other products were using a standard hard drive with a 1.6 inch/40.6 mm height forcing the card to hang over the adjacent PC slot. The hard drive was located on the opposite side away from the connector sometimes enabling a short half-length expansion card to be installed in the adjacent slot. These hard drive cards were usually described as occupying 1.5 expansion slots.[4] Below are some of companies and product names with a similar product to the Plus Hardcard.[5][6]
- JVC (Japan Victor Company)
- Kamerman Labs, (Beaverton, Oregon) – Slot Machine
- Maynard Electronics, (Casselberry, Florida) – On Board
- Microscience International Corp, (Mountain View, California) – EasyCard
- Mountain Computer Inc., (Scotts Valley, California) – DriveCard
- Qubie Distributing, (Camarillo, California) – Hardpack
- Tandon Corporation, (Chatsworth, California) – DiskCard, Business Card
- Verbatum Corporation, (Sunnyvale, California) – Data Bank
- Western Digital, (Irvine, California) – FileCard
Acquisitions
Over the eight years of its existence, Plus Development had only a single acquisition, La Cie, of Tualatin, Oregon, a manufacturer and direct marketeer of external hard drives for Apple Computer products. The trade paper InfoWorld published the announcement in their December 3, 1990, edition noting the $3.8 million cash transaction.[7]
References
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