Talk:Hardcard

WD Filecard
Picture of a WD Filecard 30, just removed from an Amstrad PC1640. Drutt 11:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have one of those :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.230.101.206 (talk) 14:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, it's gone. 2 year timelimit on imageshack then? I'll see about hosting it somewhere else. Drutt (talk) 23:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Plus Development invented the hard drive on a card and trademarked the term Hardcard
I plan to adjust this article a little to start with the name being a trademark of Plus Development (a Quantum Subsidiary) for their hard drive on-a-card product that was quickly copied by a number of other companies. The name Hardcard quickly turned into a generically used term for any drive-on-a-card.

My changes will include all the current data in the article with some additional references to support any new statements. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 18:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Not first HDD on a card
FWIW, there were several big HDDs on big cards before Plus, they were the first to fit into a PC slot but I am sure there were Unibus drives on a card before there was a PC. If I get around to it I will try to find a reference Tom94022 (talk) 05:50, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To clarify your comment, I believe you are saying Plus was the first to fit in a PC card slot (ISA), but there were other HDDs on cards, likely Unibus-based before Plus. I would love to see that. It would be even cooler to see any photos. I have no problem altering the claim to be the first IBM PC type, the first ISA interface, or the first consumer-upgradable drive on a card. I believe those are all true. I will check the references to see if we can narrow the scope of the claim. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 08:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To further clarify, I am pretty sure Plus was the first to mount a head disk assembly on one card that fit into a card slot and had a bus interface. The earlier ones mounted a conventional disk drive on a card and occupied several slots.  Of course this is what Plus's many competitors then did so their 'hard cards' occupied more than one slot, typically one and one half of a slot, leaving the adjacent slot's interface free for a half slot board.  I will see if i can find something. Tom94022 (talk) 15:34, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Not first integrated controller
"Xebec Owl combines on-board controller, electronics," MiniMicro, Aug 1984. If by integration, u mean just putting a controller and a drive in the same cabinet then u can go back to the IBM 3333, so called A Box, circa 1974. Tom94022 (talk) 15:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean here. I guess the Plus guys did not realize that. I was just citing the comments from the source. I will adjust it and add this source to the notes to discount that claim in the sources. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 19:00, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * For anyone coming after us, at first I thought possibly the first source we discussed above had the wrong year. If you look at the other sources available on the web you find the actual printed date of the magazine articles show 1985, vs. the hard written date/year of the first source we both looked at. However I did manage to find one printed source, Electronic design, Volume 33, Issues 18-22. Although the issue was from 1985, the article on the Owl says "The first of these was the Xebec Owl, a unit that bowed in last summer [1984]."
 * http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS350&=&q=Dr.+Dobb%27s+Journal%2C+December+1985&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=#q=xebec+owl&hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS350&prmdo=1&tbm=bks&ei=dsQQTvLTCInfiAKPlaH1Ag&start=10&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d636e0cc151b7d8d&biw=1671&bih=916
 * &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a copy of the August 1984 MiniMicro article in my files with a printed date and a Xebec Owl datasheet dated October 1984. Tom94022 (talk) 23:12, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Hard card drive offered separately
I feel like I am being picky, but I'm not sure what u mean by, "but it was not available as a stand alone drive (separate of Hardcard) for a few more years." I don't think Quantum/Plus ever separated the drive and offered it with another interface. Many years later I think they offered a pluggable drive, "Passport" maybe, but I'm not sure I would describe it in the manner quoted. Tom94022 (talk) 23:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We can chance the wording to be more clear if you think its confusing. Somewhere I read the early drives were custom designed just for Hardcard and the later models were the same 1-in drives being sold by Quantum to OEMs with the IDE interface. I am happy to remove it until I find the supporting source. You are correct they had the removable Passport and they also had the separate Impulse line that were the same as the Quantum OEM drives with a retail packaging. http://books.google.com/books?id=BToEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT25&dq=plus+impulse&hl=en&ei=kRQRTtD5N-LYiALbhpz6DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=plus%20impulse&f=false

&sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 01:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I updated the article to clarify the statement and added the sourced reference than Conner actually introduced the first 1" think thick 3.5" HDD 3 years later (appearantly beating Quantum) with their IDE/ATA version of the Hardcard drive based on the sources I found so far. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 03:02, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is now a non-sequitor. The Hardcard did not fit into any normal HDD form factor which at that time was the same size as the FDD form factor.  Drive width, driven by disk diameter, has always been the crucial dimension with z height being less important (as long as it didn't exceed the maximum).  The 3½-inch width has always been 4.0-inch and if I recall correctly we started with a z height of 1.625-inch and then went to 1.0-inch z height following the floppies.  The Hardcard used a 95mm disk like most of the 3½-inch drives at that time but never comported to any HDD form factor standard so the fact that it had a 1-inch z height is interesting but not related to the form factor evolution and therefore IMHO to put it in here is a non-sequitor.  Tom94022 (talk) 07:37, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is still relevant since it took a lot of engineering to get the spindle motor, voice-coil actuator, and other mechanical components into that space. That work enabled Quantum to more quickly move to a standard 3.5" HDD with a 1" Z-height. Now we could change the wording to focus more on why did Conner beat Quantum to the 1" HDD if they had all this momentum with Hardcard solving the problems. As I mentioned somewhere I saw a source talking about the later Hardcard drives using the standard 1" high Quantum IDE/ATA drives. If you were talking about an article that discussed the evolution of the Z-height of the standard HDD I would be more inclined to agree with you. Since this is on the history of Hardcard I think the significance of the engineering is worth a single sentence in this relatively short article. If others disagree with me I certainly won't lose any sleep over this if others think it should be removed. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 22:47, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In the big picture of the descent in z height from 60-inches (thereabouts) to 7 mm the step from 1.6-inch to the Hardcard's 1.0-inch HDA was routine and took way less engineering than any full form factor step which typically shrunk all dimensions. Note the Hardcard is 1.0 x 4.2 x 13.4 inches and occupies far more volume than the 1.6-inch high 3½-inch industry standard form factor (56 vs 34 in3.  So, "a lot of engineering", I think not.  There in fact may have been no reduction, just a repackaging. So Conner in order to fit into a 1.0-inch high form factor had to have an HDA what was substantially thinner than 1.0-inch to accommodate the pc assembly under the HDA.  Plus avoided this by canterleaving the pc assembly beyond the HDA.  I bet the HDA of a Plus is not substantively thinner than the HDA of a conventional 1.6-inch high 3½-inch form factor drive.  The best they can maybe claim is the first 1-inch HDA, but I really don't think that is notable. Tom94022 (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess I did not recognize there was a POV issue, but it looks like your footnotes are a reasonable compromise. I am curious on your logic for the total area. I see the dimensions of Hardcard, but in your comparison to the standard form factor drives you are not accounting for the ISA circuit board needed to connect to the motherboard. Should that same area be added to the 21 cubic inches? Not sure it is important either way. I have no concern if you leave it as is. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 06:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * U make a very good and subtle point. I just took the view that an HDD is whatever one calls it, so when Brown calls the Hardcard an HDD I accepted that and calculated its volume.  Today the ISA board has been sucked into the South Bridge with essentially zero volume.  I'm not sure when it disappeared into the motherboard but I think it was pretty early; the Compaq 2 had a bridge controller but I think immediately thereafter all Compaq's built it into the MB.  So I think it is fair to compare volumes, but maybe TMI for this article - clarifying the thickness POV is necessary so I will take another hack at it and we can see if it gets better. Tom94022 (talk) 16:06, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that sounds pretty neutral to me. I am good. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 04:20, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

End of the era?
So when did Quantum shut down production of Hardcards or are they still being produced? The article seems to indicate there was no real development after 1992. Nutster (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2019 (UTC)