ZX Microdrive unit Microdrive cartridge cassette tape for comparison. The ZX Microdrive is a magnetic tape data storage system launched in July 1983 by Sinclair Research for its ZX Spectrum home computer. It was proposed as a cheaper alternative to the floppy disk, but it suffered from poor reliability and lower speed. The Microdrive technology was later also used in the Sinclair QL and ICL One Per Desk personal computers.
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The minimum storage capacity of a Microdrive tape cartridge was 85 KB.
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Typically of Sinclair Research, the ZX Microdrive was comparatively cheap (£49.95 at launch) and technologically innovative but also rather limited. Connecting a ZX Microdrive to a ZX Spectrum required the ZX Interface 1 unit, costing £49.95, although this could be bought packaged with a Microdrive for £79.95. Later, in March 1985, the ZX Spectrum Expansion System was launched for £99.95. This consisted of Interface 1, a Microdrive, a blank cartridge and several cartridges containing Tasword Two word processor plus Masterfile filing system, Quicksilva's Games Designer and Ant Attack game, and an introductory cartridge.
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The iPod series, which grew to include microdrive and flash-based players, has become the market leader in DAPs.
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It supports most memory card formats, including CompactFlash-I, CompactFlash-II, Smart Memory, Memory Stick, MicroDrive, Multimediacard and Secure Digital Card.
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A total of eight ZX Microdrive units could be connected to the Interface 1 by daisy chaining one drive to the next via an electrical connector block.
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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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Some companies created software to bypass protection schemes, including Speedlock, for the purpose of backing up or transferring to Microdrive, the Spectrum +3, or other proprietary disk systems.
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ZX Microdrive cartridge The ZX Microdrive system was released in July 1983 and quickly became quite popular with the Spectrum user base due to the low cost of the drives, however, the actual media was very expensive for software publishers to use for mass market releases (by a factor of 10, compared to tape duplication). Furthermore, the cartridges themselves acquired a reputation for unreliability, and publishers were reluctant to QA each and every item shipped. Hence the main use became to complement tape releases, usually utilities and niche products like the Tasword word processing software and the aforementioned Trans Express. No games are known to be exclusively released on Microdrive, but some companies allowed, and even aided, their software to be copied over.
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Most Spectrum software was originally distributed on audio cassette tapes. The Spectrum was intended to work with a normal domestic cassette recorder. Although the ZX Microdrive was initially greeted with good reviews, it never took off as a distribution method due to worries about the quality of the cartridges and piracy. Hence the main use became to complement tape releases, usually utilities and niche products like the Tasword word processing software and Trans Express, (a tape to microdrive copying utility).
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It is claimed the Microdrive concept was originally suggested by Andrew Grillet at an interview with Sinclair Research in 1974. Grillet proposed "a version of the Learjet Stereo 8 system, modified to allow two 64k core images per track for roll-out roll-in swapping using the KUTS protocol". Grillet was offered a better-paying job at Xerox Corporation, and never worked for Sinclair Research. Development of the ZX Microdrive hardware by Sinclair engineers Jim Westwood, David Southward and Ben Cheese started in 1982.
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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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An external tape recorder was needed to load the majority of software released, or the ZX Microdrive. Either socket could be connected to headphones or an amplifier as an audio output, although this would not disable the internal speaker.
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A ZX Spectrum version was programmed by Clive Townsend for Elite Systems in 1987 for their Durell publishing line of games, but was never released; a ROM has since been leaked from a collection of Townsend's ZX Microdrive disk files.
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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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The ZX Interface 1 with the ZX Microdrive connected A peripheral from Sinclair Research for its ZX Spectrum home computer, the ZX Interface 1 was launched in 1983. Originally intended as a local area network interface for use in school classrooms, it was revised before launch to also act as the controller for up to eight ZX Microdrive high-speed tape-loop cartridge drives. It also included a DE-9 RS-232 interface capable of operating at up to 19.2 kbit/s. At hardware level it was fundamentally a voltage adaptor, the serial protocol being implemented in software by bit-banging.
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The ROM update for the LifeDrive is available at palm.com. It is possible to replace the stock 4 GB Microdrive with a 4GB Compact Flash card, improving battery life and operating speed due to the lower power consumption of flash memory and relative speed increased compared to hard disks.
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Richard Shepherd Software was a software house active between 1982 and 1985. The company was known for releasing text adventure games, most notably Urban Upstart. These were programmed by Richard Shepherd himself and Pete Cooke. Richard Shepherd's finance utility, Cash Controller, was the first Spectrum programs to be designed to work with the ZX Microdrive.
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Iomega Clik! PocketZip Drive and Media The PocketZip drive was available originally as a laptop PC card (PCMCIA) slot drive where it could compete with contemporary PC card, MicroDrive, CompactFlash and SmartMedia readers. A dock was available to connect this drive to a desktop computer's parallel port. Later, a USB version of the drive was also offered.
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For this reason, a 4 GB microdrive hard disk drive was selected for the task. It featured a separate data partition that could be used as a portable disk drive. The LifeDrive featured Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, the first Palm handheld to feature both. The device came pre-loaded with eReader, Documents To Go, and WiFile software.
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It was possible to "expand" the capacity of a fresh microdrive cartridge by formatting it several times. This caused the tape to stretch slightly, increasing the length of the tape loop so that more sectors can be marked out on it. This procedure was widely documented in the Sinclair community magazines of the 1980s. Unfortunately, the system acquired a reputation for unreliability.
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The ZX Interface 1 was incompatible with some later ZX Spectrum models such as the +2A and +3, due to differences in ROM and in the expansion connector. It was therefore impossible to connect and use the Microdrive units with these later models. It did, however work with the original +2, although the much larger case made the interface an awkward fit.
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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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The TrekStor Vibez is a microdrive digital audio player released on November 15, 2006. It is available in 8 GB and 12 GB capacities. Flash versions of the Vibez player with 4 and 8 GB capacity were announced in 2007, but did not materialize for a while. A 16-gigabyte Vibez with flash memory was reviewed by German computer magazine c't in early July 2008.
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Users have replaced the 4 or 6 GB Microdrive with high capacity 8, 16,turn your iPod mini into a flash based iPod :: projects :: geek technique, retrieved January 30, 2014 32, 64 and even 256 GB CompactFlash and SD cards. Aside from increased capacity, this has the advantage of increasing battery life and making the Mini more durable since CompactFlash cards are solid-state with no moving parts.
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Maelstrom Games had also designed a play by mail version of Dark Sceptre. Players sent in their turns via ZX Microdrive cartridge, whilst Singleton adjudicated the whole game. This version of the software allowed two modes of display: Replay and Simulation. Replay allowed the player to select a character and watch events that occurred since his last turn, whilst Simulation predicts the events in the game based on the player's orders to his warriors.
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The system has Bluetooth 2.0 (with support for up to seven Bluetooth devicesquick reference manual , for 20 GB US PlayStation 3 page 14), Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and HDMI 1.4 built in. Wi-Fi networking is also built-in on all but the 20 GB models, while a flash card reader (compatible with Memory Stick, SD/MMC and CompactFlash/Microdrive media) is built-in on 60 GB and CECHExx 80 GB models.
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Unlike previous Tritons, which were a white-silver color, the Extreme was finished in dark blue. Like the Triton "Classic" and Studio, the Triton Extreme included a touch screen interface, along with the knob and button controls. A USB interface enabled connectivity with a PC, facilitating exchange of samples, sound programs, sequences, and other Triton-compatible files. CompactFlash and microdrive cards up to 8 GB were supported, negating the need to sample directly to RAM.
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Hewlett-Packard HP3013/3014, nicknamed Kittyhawk, was a hard disk drive introduced by Hewlett-Packard in June 1992. HP Kittyhawk Microdrive, shown with a coin and compact flash card for comparisonIt was the first ever commercially produced hard drive in a 1.3 inch form factor. The original implementation (model 3013) had the capacity of 20 MB. A 40 MB model called Kittyhawk II (model 3014) was eventually introduced, with the retail price of $499. Both models have IDE interfaces.
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Available in either 2GB and 4GB CompactFlash, 4GB Microdrive-CF, or empty CF memory slot, the MAX Media Player was seen as bridging the gap between the DS and the PlayStation Portable. This device has also been used for Nintendo DS Homebrew and was one of the more easily obtainable hacking tools for DS before the rise of R4DS and M3 slot-1 devices, as the device was available at Wal- Mart alongside Datel's other products at the time.
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"Microdrive — 1983", Planet Sinclair The tapes stretched during use (giving them a short life span) eventually rendering the data stored unreadable. Also the "write protection" was software-based so that a computer crash could erase the data on an entire tape in 8 seconds. The cartridges were relatively expensive (initially sold for £4.95 each, later reduced to £1.99). Similar technology was used in other devices, such as the Rotronics Wafadrive, and was sometimes known as a "stringy floppy".
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No games are known to be exclusively released on Microdrive. Although the Interface 2 proved popular, the high cost of ROM cartridges, and the fact that they were limited to 16K in size, meant that very few titles were released in this format. Software was distributed through print media; magazines and books. The reader would type the BASIC program listing into the computer by hand, run it, and could save it to tape for later 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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ZEN Micro glowing in the dark The ZEN Micro was released on November 12, 2004, and is a microdrive player available in 10 colors. It is also the first ZEN release that sports the new branding, including capitals for all letters in Zen. ZEN Micro with the included earphones The ZEN Micro is much smaller than the Touch and shares a similar interface and controls (including the touchpad, without the 'OK' button. Making a selection would be done by tapping the touchpad).
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In 1946, he moved to the United States to work at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an assistant resident in Neurology. He was later drafted by the army and served at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). There, he began recording from the primary visual cortex of sleeping and awake cats. At WRAIR, he invented the modern metal microelectrode out of Stoner-Mudge lacquer and tungsten, and the modern hydraulic microdrive, which he had to learn basic machinist skills to produce.
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The back had a then-massive 16MB of RAM to act as an image buffer, as well as a PCMCIA card slot for image storage, plus a SCSI socket for connection to a computer. The imaging element was an APS-C sensor with a 1.5x crop factor, and a resolution of 1268 x 1012 pixels (1.3 mp). The camera back did not have an LCD monitor. A typical 260MB PCMCIA card or IBM Microdrive of the period could store 189 images.
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The machine runs the EPOC operating system (a predecessor of Symbian OS), and as such, can be programmed in the Open Programming Language (OPL), using the provided development program, or in C++ or Java using a separate PC-hosted development system. It can be synchronized to a PC by means of an RS232 port to serial connector, a method that is antiquated by modern standards. The unit has an expansion port for a Compact Flash (CF II) device such as the Hitachi Microdrive.
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A French version was also made by Codewriter. In 1985 Neil Fleming-Smith ported The Quill to the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers for Gilsoft. Although not credited in the article, Chris Hobson submitted a patch to Crash magazine which allowed the Spectrum version to save to a Microdrive. This was published in the September 1986 edition The Quill only allowed for the creation of text- only adventures, using a text interpretation process known as a verb-noun parser.
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From left to right: Sony's Walkman A810, and Apple's iPod Nano (5th generation) - two flash memory type PMPs from the late 2000s. A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. What are the differences in DLNA device classes? The data is typically stored on a compact disc (CD), Digital Video Disc (DVD), Blu-ray Disc (BD), flash memory, microdrive, or hard drive.
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A similar concept to the ZX Microdrive was the extremely fast "Phonemark 8500 Quick Data Drive" which has capacity using a micro-cassette storage unit and used the C2N Datasette. The concept eventually succumbed to floppy drives. The Quick Data Drive (QDD) connected to the datassette port of the Commodore 64 and could load data at which is faster than the C1541 floppy drive. It needed a small program code to be loaded in the memory at 0xC000-0xCFFF which collided with many other programs.
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Although the sensor was much larger than the EOS DCS 3, the DCS 1 had a lower fixed sensitivity of ISO 80. The large image size resulted in a burst rate of just over one image per second for two images, followed by an eight-second delay to clear the buffer. A typical contemporary 340MB PCMCIA card or IBM Microdrive could store 53 images. In line with the rest of the Kodak DCS range, the EOS DCS 1 could not produce JPEG files in camera.
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Tape drives are used with autoloaders and tape libraries which automatically load, unload, and store multiple tapes, increasing the volume of data which can be stored without manual intervention. In the early days of home computing, floppy and hard disk drives were very expensive. Many computers had an interface to store data via an audio tape recorder, typically on Compact Cassettes. Simple dedicated tape drives, such as the professional DECtape and the home ZX Microdrive and Rotronics Wafadrive, were also designed for inexpensive data storage.
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This was not very readable but did allow easy porting of BASIC applications designed for an 80-column screen. Text size could be controlled programmatically so that part of a program's display might use 64-column text, part 32-column text and enlarged or reduced intermediate sizes. Special versions were produced for users of Interface 1 and the ZX Microdrive, and subsequently for those with the Opus Discovery, DISCiPLE and PlusD disk interfaces as well. A version for the Amstrad Spectrum +3 was also under consideration for a while, but Wright discarded the project.
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In industrial and embedded fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, the memory card has become smaller. Initially memory cards were expensive, costing $1 per megabyte of capacity; this led to the development of the Microdrive, PocketZip and Dataplay. All three concepts became obsolete after flash memory prices became lower and capacities became higher. Since 2010, new products of Sony (previously only using Memory Stick) and Olympus (previously only using XD-Card) have been offered with an additional SD-Card slot.
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Even though there were a number of new entrants, industry participants continued to decline in total to 15 in 1999. Unit volume and industry revenue monotonically increased during the 1990s to 174 million units and $26 billion.Gartner/Dataquest, Market Share and Forecast: Hard Disk Drives, Worldwide, 2001-2010, Chapter 2, (c) 2006 The industry production consolidated around the 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch form factors; the larger form factors dying off while several smaller form factors were offered but achieved limited success, e.g. HP 1.3-inch Kittyhawk, IBM 1-inch Microdrive, etc.
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Some later Palms use NVRAM or microdrive for storage. Memo Pad can hold notes of up to 4,000 characters each; the newer Memos app increases field size from 3 to 30 kB. Memos are ordered in two ways: alphabetically, and manually (which allows the user to choose the order of the memos), and memos can be grouped in user- configurable categories. Memo Pad is for text only, not for drawings, and text can be entered using the Graffiti alphabet, using hardware or software keyboards, or using the 'paste' function.
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The Multiface One was released in 1986Lambert, John: "Back Up Your Troubles", Sinclair User, Issue 47, February 1986 for the ZX Spectrum 48K. It initially cost £39.95 and had the capability of saving data to cassette tape, ZX Microdrive, Opus Discovery (an external 3.5 inch disk drive) or Technology Research Beta (an interface that allowed 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch drives to be connected). The device worked on 128K Spectrums, but only if they were put in 48K mode. It featured a Kempston joystick port, and later revisions contained a switch that effectively 'hid' the device from software.
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The Media Center, branded by Western Digital, is a 7,200-rpm hard drive (either 160GB or 250GB), combined with a reader of CompactFlash Type I and II, Microdrive, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, and SmartMedia media. It can use either FireWire or USB to interface with a personal computer (Farrance, 2004). Although branded as a Media Center this product is not a traditional media center and is nothing but a storage device and cannot actually play any media to a TV or Monitor. It must be plugged into a computer using the appropriate software to play any media.
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The iPod Mini's Microdrive (4 GB Hitachi model), seen here on the right The battery life of the first generation of iPod Mini was about 8 hours, similar to the third generation iPod that was available when the Mini was released, which some criticised for its short duration. Apple addressed this problem in the second generation models, which had a nominal battery life of about 18 hours. However, the second generation iPod Minis no longer came with a FireWire cable or an AC power adapter, which were left out to reduce the selling prices of the new iPod Minis.
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Spectrum software was distributed almost exclusively on audio cassettes Many copiers—utilities to copy programs from audio tape to another tape, microdrive tapes, and later on diskettes—were available for the Spectrum. As a response to this, publishers introduced copy protection measures to their software, including different loading schemes. Other methods for copy prevention were also used including asking for a particular word from the documentation included with the game—often a novella such as the Silicon Dreams trilogy—or another physical device distributed with the software—e.g. Lenslok as used in Elite, or the colour-code chart included with Jet Set Willy.
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The system firmware (BFS or "Basic Functional Software") was unrelated to the QL's Qdos operating system, although a subset of SuperBASIC was provided on Microdrive cartridge. The BFS provided application-switching, voice/data call management, call answering, phone number directories, viewdata terminal emulation and a simple calculator. The Psion applications suite bundled with the QL was also ported to the OPD as Xchange and was available as an optional ROM pack. Other optional application software available on ROM included various terminal emulators such as Satellite Computing's ICL7561 emulator, plus their Action Diary and Presentation Software, address book, and inter-OPD communications utilities.
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First generation iPod Minis were available in five colors: silver, gold, pink, blue, and green. The gold model was dropped from the second generation range, likely due to its unpopularity. The pink, blue, and green models had brighter hues in the second generation; the silver model remained unchanged. The iPod Mini used Microdrive hard drives (CompactFlash II) made by Hitachi and Seagate. First generation models were available in a 4 GB size, while second generation models were available in both 4 GB and 6 GB versions (quoted as capable of storing roughly 1,000 and 1,500 songs, respectively) and eventually the second generation had the capacity laser etched into the aluminum case.
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Two further revisions of the device's firmware were made following launch.Interface 1, Issue 10, December 1984, Your Spectrum 10 These aimed to improve ZX Microdrive cartridge formatting and access time, printing functions via the RS-232 interface, and other bugs in the firmware held in the device's internal 8K ROM. Machine code software which used the officially documented entry points ('hook codes') would experience few incompatibility issues; however, programs using non-standard entry points risked incompatibility due to the presence of revised entry points. The same protocol, renamed QLAN, was later used on the Sinclair QL. This was intended to be interoperable with ZX Net, but due to timing differences interoperability was found to be problematic.
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This project is not to be confused with Loki, which was described as the "SuperSpectrum" in an article in the June 1986 issue of Sinclair User magazine. ;Pandora This was to be a portable computer with an integral flat- screen CRT display. Initially to be ZX Spectrum-compatible with a faster Z80 CPU, a built-in ZX Microdrive and a new 512×192-pixel monochrome video mode. Due to the limited size of flat CRT that could be manufactured, a series of folding lenses and mirrors were necessary to magnify the screen image to a usable size. The project was cancelled after the Amstrad take-over, but the Pandora concept eventually transformed into the Cambridge Computer Z88.
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The iPAQ was developed by Compaq based on the SA-1110 "Assabet" and SA-1111 "Neponset" reference boards that were engineered by a StrongARM development group located at Digital Equipment Corporation's Hudson Massachusetts facility. At the time when these boards were in development, this facility was acquired by Intel. When the "Assabet" board is combined with the "Neponset" companion processor board they provide support for 32 megabytes of SDRAM in addition to CompactFlash and PCMCIA slots along with an I2S or AC-Link serial audio bus, PS/2 mouse and trackpad interfaces, a USB host controller and 18 additional GPIO pins. Software drivers for a CompactFlash ethernet device, IDE storage devices such as the IBM Microdrive and the Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 Wifi device were also available.
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It returned to the slider form of the 5xxx, but with a VGA display; a slider with a few key buttons covered a thumbboard. There was a joint project with IBM; the 6000 did not gain mass popularity and Amazon sold off their remaindered stock. In October 2004 Sharp announced the SL-C3000 - the world's first PDA with an integrated hard disk drive (preceding the Palm Life Drive). It featured a similar hardware and software specification to the earlier C860 model; the key differences were that it only had 16 MB of flash memory yet gained an internal 4 GB Hitachi microdrive, a USB Host port, and "lost" the serial port (in some cases the components were not fitted to the motherboard or were incapable of driving the regular serial adaptor cables).
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The following computer products were under development at Sinclair Research during the 1980s but never reached production: ;LC3 Standing for "Low Cost Colour Computer", the LC3 was developed during 1983 by Martin Brennan and was intended to be a cheap Z80-based games console implemented in two chips, using RAM and (non-volatile) RAM cartridges for storage. A multi-tasking operating system for the LC3, with a full windowing GUI, was designed by Steve Berry. It was cancelled in November 1983 in favour of the QL. ;SuperSpectrum Intended to be a 68008-based home computer, equipped with built-in ZX Microdrive, joystick, RS-232 and ZX Net ports. Sinclair's SuperBASIC programming language was originally intended for this model but was later adopted for the QL. SuperSpectrum was cancelled in 1982 after the specification of the ZX83 (QL) had converged with it.
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Compatibility issues with games for both systems are detailed in a public database hosted by the manufacturer. All models, excluding the 20 GB model, include 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi. In addition to all of the features of the 20 GB model, the 60 GB model has internal IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi- Fi, multiple flash card readers (SD/MultiMedia Card, CompactFlash Type I/Type II, Microdrive, Memory Stick/PRO/Duo) and a chrome colored trim. In terms of hardware, the 80 GB model CECHE released in South Korea is identical to the 60 GB model CECHC released in the PAL regions, except for the difference in hard drive size. The European 60GB model (CECHC), the South Korean and North American CECHE 80GB model excludes the PlayStation 2 "Emotion Engine" CPU chip with it being replaced by an emulated version via the Cell Broadband Engine.
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An innovative alternative was the Exatron Stringy Floppy, a continuous loop tape drive which was much faster than a datacassette drive and could perform much like a floppy disk drive. It was available for the TRS-80 and some others. A closely related technology was the ZX Microdrive developed by Sinclair Research in the UK for their ZX Spectrum and QL home computers. Eventually mass production of 5.25" drives resulted in lower prices, and after about 1984 they pushed cassette drives out of the US home computer market. 5.25" floppy disk drives would remain standard until the end of the 8-bit era. Though external 3.5" drives were made available for home computer systems toward the latter part of the 1980s, almost all software sold for 8-bit home computers remained on 5.25" disks; 3.5" drives were used for data storage, with the exception of the Japanese MSX standard, on which 5.25" floppies were never popular.
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Vari-angle LCD monitor ; Effective pixels : 8.0 million (total pixels: 8.31 million) ; Image size : 8M (3,264 × 2,448), 3:2 (3,264 × 2,176), 5M (2,592 × 1,944), 3M (2,048 × 1,536), 2M (1,600 × 1,200), 1M (1,280 × 960), PC (1,024 × 768), TV (640 × 480) ; Lens / Digital zoom : 3.5× Zoom-Nikkor; 6.1–21.6 mm [35 mm (135) format equivalent to 24–85 mm]; f/2.6–4.9; 10 elements in 7 groups; two glass molded ED lens elements included; 4× digital zoom ; Focus range : to infinity (∞); to infinity (∞) (W), to infinity (∞) (T) in macro and manual focus modes ; Storage media : CompactFlash(CF) Card (Type I/II) and Microdrive ; Storage : File system: Compliant with Design rule for Camera File system (DCF), Exif 2.2, and Digital Print Order Format (DPOF); File formats: RAW (NEF) and TIFF-RGB (uncompressed), JPEG-baseline-compliant (1:2, 1:4, 1:8, 1:16) (compressed), QuickTime (movies), WAV (sound files). When connected to computer via USB port, camera implements a mass storage device, containing folder with images. It does not need any special software to get the data from it. Data transfer via USB works also under Linux. ; Number of frames (approx.) : RAW: 20, HI: 10, EXTRA:30, FINE: 60, NORMAL: 125, BASIC: 240 (With 256 MB CF Card, image size 3,264 × 2,448).
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