Computer Memories Inc. (CMI) was a Chatsworth, California manufacturer of
hard diskA hard disk drive is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk...
s during the early 1980s. CMI made basic
stepper motorA stepper motor is a brushless, synchronous electric motor that can divide a full rotation into a large number of steps. The motor's position can be controlled precisely, without any feedback mechanism...
-based drives, with low cost in mind.
In August 1984 they secured a major contract as sole producer of 20-
megabyteThe megabyte is an SI-multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission and is equal to 10
6 bytes. However, due to historical usage in computer-related fields it is still often used to represent 2
20 bytes. In rare cases, it is used to mean...
hard drives for the base model of the IBM PC/AT. Unfortunately, the Singapore-manufactured CM6000 drives proved highly unreliable. Dealers reported failure rates as high as 25 to 30 percent.
Computer Memories Inc. (CMI) was a Chatsworth, California manufacturer of
hard diskA hard disk drive is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk...
s during the early 1980s. CMI made basic
stepper motorA stepper motor is a brushless, synchronous electric motor that can divide a full rotation into a large number of steps. The motor's position can be controlled precisely, without any feedback mechanism...
-based drives, with low cost in mind.
In August 1984 they secured a major contract as sole producer of 20-
megabyteThe megabyte is an SI-multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission and is equal to 10
6 bytes. However, due to historical usage in computer-related fields it is still often used to represent 2
20 bytes. In rare cases, it is used to mean...
hard drives for the base model of the IBM PC/AT. Unfortunately, the Singapore-manufactured CM6000 drives proved highly unreliable. Dealers reported failure rates as high as 25 to 30 percent. Part of the problem was high demand for the PC/AT;
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM, is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, Town of North Castle, New York, United States. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating...
increased its order from 90,000 units in 1984 to 240,000 in 1985, and manufacturing quality suffered. Second, the design of the disk drive subsystem itself was flawed.
At the same time, Quantum Corporation sued CMI for
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
infringement relating to the
servoServo may refer to:* Servomechanism, or servo, a device used to provide control of a desired operation through the use of feedback* Servo drive, a special electric amplifier used to power electric servo motors...
mechanism in the entire CM6600 line of drives. Instead of putting the tracking grating on the head arm and driving the arm directly from a
voice coilA voice coil is the coil of wire attached to the apex of a loudspeaker cone. It provides the motive force to the cone by the reaction of a magnetic field to the current passing through it...
, like the Quantum designs, CMI made a composite motor that would bolt to the drive in place of the usual stepper motor, with the voice coil on the bottom and the tracking mechanism on top (similar to DC servo motors used in process controls and robotics). CMI connected the motor to the arm with a metal-band pulley, the same mechanism they used on their stepper-motor drives. Since the feedback system was behind the pulley, it had to compensate for slack in the arm, one of several things the CMI firmware didn't take account of.
CMI released a "patent-free" 7600 series of drives in 1986, but never recovered from the IBM incident. On July 2, 1986 they announced their departure from hard disk production and marketing—95% of their business. Attempts were made in 1987 to sell the remainder of the company to movie producer
Hemdale Film CorporationHemdale Film Corporation , known as Hemdale Communications after 1993, was an independent film production company and distributor founded in London in 1967 as the Hemdale Company by actor David Hemmings and his manager, John Daly...
and to animated television program producer
DIC Animation CityDIC Entertainment was an international American film and television production company which was founded in 1971 as DIC Audiovisuel by Jean Chalopin in Luxembourg, as a subsidiary of Radio-Television Luxembourg...
; however, both deals fell through.
In 1988 the shell corporation, still traded publicly, was acquired by Paul and Natalie Koether of
Far Hills, New JerseyFar Hills is a borough in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the population was 859.Far Hills was incorporated as a borough based on an Act of the New Jersey Legislature passed on April 7, 1921, from portions of Bernards Township, Subject to the results...
who used it as an investment vehicle; in 1992 it was renamed American Holdings, Inc. In 1995 it was renamed Pure World, Inc. after its largest subsidiary, a supplier of
kavaKava is an ancient crop of the western Pacific. Other names for kava include awa , 'ava , yaqona , and sakau . The word kava is used to refer both to the plant and the beverage produced from its roots...
and other botanical products. Finally, on June 6, 2005 it was acquired by Naturex, S.A., a French competitor.
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