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Declined by Qcne 53 days ago. Last edited by Qcne 53 days ago. Reviewer: Inform author.

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Comment: A lot of this draft seems to be WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH? Qcne (talk) 15:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Avatar Shark Drive[edit]

The Shark format was released in 1995 by Avatar Systems, a small corporation founded in 1991 with little known history about it, as it only made drives for OEM manufacturers. The format initially got good reviews by the press, but the format never caught on, falling victim to Iomega's monopoly in 1998 when Avatar filed for bankruptcy.

History[edit]

The Shark launched in 1995, with the format having great reviews. The format came in compact 2.5" diskettes, branded by Avatar as HardDiskettes. Despite the good reviews by the press, the format failed to catch on. Avatar tried boosting the format by making ad campaigns, but then resorted to price cuts, with the lowest being 199$ in 1998, where a mail rebate would be held. But, Avatar filed for bankruptcy in late 1998 after failing to repay customer rebates.

Technology[edit]

The Shark format was based off of SyQuest's removable hard drive technology, where the spindle, and read/write head was located inside the drive, while the platter, a 2.5" high density 250-megabyte diskette , was enclosed in a stainless steel case, with minimal dust entering both the drive and the platter. In contrast to SyQuest, the Shark format was more reliable, as dust was kept to a minimum, while SyQuest's offerings were plagued by not only dust destroying sectors, but other fatal problems as well, leading to a better longevity with Avatar's offering. However, a big con was that the drive itself could not be moved with a disk inside, as a reviewer noted in 1997 that moving the drive with a disk inside destroys both the disk, and the drive.

The Shark format in the OEM scene[edit]

The Shark format was only included in an obscure OEM, Dauphin, which renamed the format into the DynaDrive, destroying Avatar's attempt at brand recognition, and caused brand confusion as Dauphin DynaDrive disks didn't exist, so buyers of Dauphin products never got around to using the drive itself.

References[edit]

"A Gig In Your Pocket," PC World, March 1998. "Shark 250," PC Magazine, May 6, 1997. Computer History Museum page on Avatar 170MB drive: https://www.computerhistory.org/colle... "Read the Instructions," PC Magazine, February 10, 1998. "Dauphin adds removable cartridge to notebook," InfoWorld, November 2, 1992. "State of the Slate: Pen-based Computers," PC Magazine, March 30, 1993. "Avatar launches hard drive targeted at road warriors," Computerworld, March 17, 1997. "Micron offers Zip as default disk drive," InfoWorld, February 23, 1998. "Shark price tags dive," Computerworld, August 18, 1997. "Watchdog," Maximum PC, December 1998. "A plethora of products," Electronic Design, November 22, 1993