Hardcard
Encyclopedia
Hardcard is the genericized trademark
for a hard disk drive, disk controller
, and host adapter
on an expansion card
for a personal computer
.
Typically a hard disk drive (HDD) installs into a drive bay
; cables connect the drive to a host adapter and power source. If the personal computer lacks an available bus on a compatible host adapter, then one may have to install an adapter into an expansion slot. The Hardcard supplies its own host adapter, and doesn't require an empty drive bay.
Plus Development
, a subsidiary of Quantum Corporation, developed the first ISA
Hardcard, and released it in October 1985. By June 1986, 28 of Plus Development's competitors were producing similar products. The term has been used generically to refer to any hard disk on a card.
By 1985, Plus Development had engineered their first Hardcard; it had a 10 megabyte
(MB) capacity; its suggested retail price
was $1,095. In the mid-1980s, hard drives were as small as 1.6 inches tall, but in order to fit into a single ISA
PC card expansion slot
a custom one-inch thick hard drive had to be designed. Having spent $15 million on the project, Plus Development started shipping Hardcard in October 1985, and trademarked the Hardcard brand
in 1988.
The Hardcard provided the computer industry with the first one-inch-thick HDD, but it was a interface and form factor only compatible with the full length card slot of the ISA
bus first introduced with the IBM PC
. As such it had a thicker head disk assembly than the subsequently introduced 1-inch high standard form factor 3½-inch HDDs.
While sources inside the company during the launch of Hardcard claim it was the first HDD controller integrated into the drive printed circuit board, Xebec, a HDD controller manufacturer in the early 1980s, had already done that with their Owl product around August 1984. It was a complete 5.25 inch half-height HDD with an integrated controller and drive electronics on the same printed circuit board with a SASI interface.
The Hardcard II and Hardcard II XL were advertised with effective access times as a result of the disk cache. The Hardcard II listed both times, but Hardcard II XL only listed the effective access time. The Hardcard EZ line returned to listing the access times without the benefit of the cache.
All Hardcard products up to and including Hardcard II XL were produced under the Plus Development name. The Hardcard EZ was released under the Quantum name after Quantum absorbed the wholly owned subsidiary Plus Development.
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 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.
Below are some of companies and product names with a similar product to the Plus Hardcard.
Genericized trademark
A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...
for a hard disk drive, disk controller
Disk controller
The disk controller is the circuit which enables the CPU to communicate with a hard disk, floppy disk or other kind of disk drive.Early disk controllers were identified by their storage methods and data encoding. They were typically implemented on a separate controller card...
, and host adapter
Host adapter
In computer hardware, a host controller, host adapter, or host bus adapter connects a host system to other network and storage devices...
on an expansion card
Expansion card
The expansion card in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus.One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts that fit exactly into the slot...
for a personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
.
Typically a hard disk drive (HDD) installs into a drive bay
Drive bay
A drive bay is a standard-sized area for adding hardware to a computer. Most drive bays are fixed to the inside of a case, but some can be removed....
; cables connect the drive to a host adapter and power source. If the personal computer lacks an available bus on a compatible host adapter, then one may have to install an adapter into an expansion slot. The Hardcard supplies its own host adapter, and doesn't require an empty drive bay.
Plus Development
Plus Development
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.-History:...
, a subsidiary of Quantum Corporation, developed the first ISA
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
Hardcard, and released it in October 1985. By June 1986, 28 of Plus Development's competitors were producing similar products. The term has been used generically to refer to any hard disk on a card.
History
Quantum Corporation formed the Plus Development subsidiary in 1983. Plus Development invested their efforts in developing a hard disk drive that the average computer owner could install easily without much technical knowledge.By 1985, Plus Development had engineered their first Hardcard; it had a 10 megabyte
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
(MB) capacity; its suggested retail price
Suggested retail price
The manufacturer's suggested retail price , list price or recommended retail price of a product is the price which the manufacturer recommends that the retailer sell the product. The intention was to help to standardise prices among locations...
was $1,095. In the mid-1980s, hard drives were as small as 1.6 inches tall, but in order to fit into a single ISA
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
PC card expansion slot
Expansion card
The expansion card in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus.One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts that fit exactly into the slot...
a custom one-inch thick hard drive had to be designed. Having spent $15 million on the project, Plus Development started shipping Hardcard in October 1985, and trademarked the Hardcard brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
in 1988.
The Hardcard provided the computer industry with the first one-inch-thick HDD, but it was a interface and form factor only compatible with the full length card slot of the ISA
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
bus first introduced with the IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
. As such it had a thicker head disk assembly than the subsequently introduced 1-inch high standard form factor 3½-inch HDDs.
While sources inside the company during the launch of Hardcard claim it was the first HDD controller integrated into the drive printed circuit board, Xebec, a HDD controller manufacturer in the early 1980s, had already done that with their Owl product around August 1984. It was a complete 5.25 inch half-height HDD with an integrated controller and drive electronics on the same printed circuit board with a SASI interface.
Plus Development's Hardcard products
After the introduction of Hardcard, Plus Development continued working on higher capacity hard drives in the same form factor of the first Hardcard. The brand name became so widely known the name was continued through the follow on products.| Product Name | Capacity (MB) | Access Time (ms) | First Shipment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcard | 10 | 65 | October 1985 |
| Hardcard 20 | 20 | 49 | June 1986 |
| Hardcard 40 | 40 | 35 | May 1987 |
| Hardcard II 80 | 80 | 25 (19 effective) | January 1990 |
| Hardcard II 40 | 40 | ||
| Hardcard II XL 105 | 105 | ? (9 effective) | October 1990 |
| Hardcard II XL 50 | 50 | ||
| Hardcard EZ 240 | 240 | 16 | September 1992 |
| Hardcard EZ 127 | 127 | 17 | |
| Hardcard EZ 85 | 85 | 17 | |
| Hardcard EZ 42 | 42 | 19 | |
The Hardcard II and Hardcard II XL were advertised with effective access times as a result of the disk cache. The Hardcard II listed both times, but Hardcard II XL only listed the effective access time. The Hardcard EZ line returned to listing the access times without the benefit of the cache.
All Hardcard products up to and including Hardcard II XL were produced under the Plus Development name. The Hardcard EZ was released under the Quantum name after Quantum absorbed the wholly owned subsidiary Plus Development.
Competition
| A generic hard disk card from a 1993 Nortel Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation, formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, was a multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturer headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada... telephone Telephone The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other... voice messaging system. |
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 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.
Below are some of companies and product names with a similar product to the Plus Hardcard.
- JVCJVC, usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927...
(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 CorporationTandon CorporationTandon Corporation was a disk drive and PC manufacturer founded in the mid-1970s by "Jugi" Tandon. The company's original purpose was to provide magnetic read-write heads for the then-burgeoning floppy-drive market. Due to the labor-intensive nature of the product, production was carried out in...
, (Chatsworth, California) – DiskCard, Business Card - Verbatum Corporation, (Sunnyvale, California) – Data Bank
- Western DigitalWestern DigitalWestern Digital Corporation is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. It has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B...
, (Irvine, California) – FileCard