Talk:SuperDisk
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I just noticed that there's another, totally different LS-120 page describing the same thing. Perhaps the info here should be merged with that page? -lee 06:08, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Old LS-120 article. Some info I couldn't really verify (and some that's wrong), so I put it here until things can be sorted out better... —Mulad 19:56, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
LS-120 is an advanced replacement for the floppy disk drive. Using the same media as existing 1.44MB floppies, LS-120 adds an accurate alignment system and advanced encoding to increase the capacity of a single diskette to 120MB. Many have touted it as the logical replacement for the hard drive, but it appears that the increasing capacity of solid-state devices such as USB keydrives have largely rendered LS-120 unmarketable.
The normal floppy disk has to deal with a number of mechanical problems that mean it is forced to store considerably less information than is theoretically possible. The main problems encountered are mechanical, the diskette surface cannot be accurately placed under the read/write heads, and therefore the "tracks", concentric rings of information, have to be much wider than needed.
Using a head-placement mechanism guided by a laser servo driving a much smaller head, LS-120 increases the number of tracks from to 2490 tracks per inch. The head also has the ability to read ordinary 3.5" floppy disk.
Normal floppy-disk controllers are not capable of addressing this number of tracks, and the LS-120 therefore uses the 40-pin IDE connection which is also used by hard-disk and CD-ROM.
The LS-120 standard was initially developed by Imation Corporation, Compaq Computer Corporation, Matsushita-Kotobuki Industires Ltd (also refereed to as Panasonic)and OR Technology. It has appeared as an add-on product for some time, but is rarely seen built-in to new machines. It has never reached crticial mass, largely for this reason, and is caught in an odd market space where computer manufacturers are unwilling to use it because no-one else does.
