Special Interest Group on Portable Optical Disc Systems-SIGPODS Mid-year Summary of Major Product Availability
Dr. Roger Hutchison, President, CD ROM, Inc. , and Dr. Joan McKean, Program Analyst, NOAA: Co-Chairs of SIGPODS
October 16, 1995 Golden, Colorado
Four years ago when Sigpods was established as a working group of SIGCAT, the Special Interest Group on CD-ROM Applications Technology, there were basically three options available to persons wishing to have portable access to optical discs, i.e. CD-ROM. One required a separate insurance policy for the high risk of hernia ruptures from carrying the device, while the other two were what we fondly called “super-glue” solutions. The superglue solutions was quite literally that– a CD-ROM drive superglued or mechanically mated to a laptop or so-called notebook computer. Needless to say, the companies who specialized in the superglue solutions are no longer in business. If by chance anyone who represented the superglue syndrome should read this article, we applaud your vision while we remain unimpressed with your previous offering.
As we move into the new year of 1996, we have come a long ways from this rough beginning. There are four major players and several minor players in the industry today which offer sophisticated and truly portable solutions to optical disc (CD-ROM) products. These major players include Panasonic, Toshiba, Texas Instruments and IBM.
The Panasonic product is the CF-41. This model is the successor to the older CFV-21P which was debuted in the fall 1993 Comdex in Las Vegas. The CFV-21P was a lightweight notebook which contained a detachable 8CM CD-ROM mechanism. You could place these so-called 3 1/2″ CD-ROM discs in a slide-out CD-ROM drive mechanism or slide in a separate battery, a TV tuner, a GPS system or the CD-ROM drive. This was a great idea at the time but the 3″ CD-ROM never caught on. This unit was soon replaced with the CF-41 which offered much improvement over the CFV-21P by offering a built-in (as opposed to slide-in) CD-ROM drive which was capable of full-sized CD-ROMs. The base price is $4,099.00 for the 486DX4/100 which includes the active color matrix. The unit today supports MPEG, the Pentium chip set and other multi-media features.
The second unit is the Toshiba Satellite Pro series. Models with CD-ROM drives include T2150CDT and model # 400CDT. The 400CDT unit boasts a quad speed CD-ROM drive. Base price for the Satellite Pro series starts at $3,799.00 for a 486DX4/75 with the active matrix color monitor. A new unit scheduled to be announced on Oct. 24 of this year is called the Tecra. The Tecra will have a 120 Mhz processing clock speed making it the fastest notebook on the market with quad speed CD-ROM drive. A PCMCIA MPEG-2 card may be available in Q2 of 1996.
Two other major players in the PODS market include IBM and Texas Instruments. The IBM unit is the ThinkPad 755CD. Base price is $5,649.00 for a 486DX4/100 with black matrix color. The Texas Instruments unit is the TravelMate 4000M. The unit has a docking station for a CD-ROM drive making it a “PODS” only when connected to the docking station. Base price for the unit is $4,449.00 for the unit plus the docking station for the 486DX4/100 with active matrix color.
Each model had advantages and disadvantages. The relatively high price is perhaps the greatest obstacle to wide-spread use of the systems at this time. Technical options for most include MPEG add-ons, various sizes of hard drives, various RAM configurations, and various monitor options. Weight for most units with built-in CD-ROM drives is around 7 to 8 pounds.
Minor players in the PODS world include Astro, MPC, Chaplet, Aspen, Winbook, and Samsung. Other monir companies include AST with the Ascentia 950N, Ergo Computing with the CD-Brick, Compac with the LTE 5000, and Altima with the Virage3 CD. Companies who initially offered some type of PODS but are apparently no longer in business include Devlonics and AVG. Lunchpail offerings were not considered for this paper.
It is likely that near term improvements in PODS will be incremental technical advances, for example higher CPU processing abilities and more video and audio improvements as Windows 95 stimulates the MPEG product developments, for example. Voice control of the PODS and more systematic and hassle-free fax modem, cellular and Internet communications capabilities for PODS will also closely track the same developments in the desk-top market. Major changes will likely occur in price points with the shipments of the P6 in February or so of 1996 and these downward price trends should be even more pronounced in the PODS units than the desktops units simply because there is more room for adjustments in a portable optical disc system then in a desktop system.
In summary, since SIGPODS was established on July 8, 1992, portable optical systems have become a reality and are likely to be under every Christmas tree if not next year then certainly the year after.