Foto-Mem
Photo Mem Inc. was an American company that has the late 1960s designed optical storage media.
The company was founded in 1967, with the aim to build mass storage for computers that do not store as opposed to the then (and now ) conventional method, data on magnetic drums, tapes or discs, but on optical media.
For this purpose, the data should be stored on microfiche similar movie tickets and be read by a laser again. The company photo -Mem hoped this could achieve much higher recording densities than in the 1960s usual magnetic systems. The approximately cabinet-sized system FM 390 was with the slogan "Multi Billion Bit Capacity" ( German: many billions of bits capacity) advertised, which converted at least 120 megabytes would have corresponded, according to former standards a huge amount of data. By combining several FM 390 also capacities in the gigabyte range would have been possible.
The structure of the device provided for, that for automated microfilm cassettes films would be selected, containing the desired information, and this would then be scanned with a laser. As a mechanical problem, the reliable selection of a particular film turned out, incorporate the necessary system called RISAR should separate the movies by airflow; although this technique at that time was not new and was also used by other companies in the microfilm area, the system of photo -Mem never worked reliably.
Furthermore, the adjustment of the reading laser was very difficult and had to be carried out regularly at short intervals by hand. The laser was at the time of development of the photo -Mem devices a very new technology, the first laser was built only seven years before.
In the early 1970s succeeded in photo meme, one of its FM 390 systems to the New York Times to sell the wanted to use Archive of old copies. At that point photo meme had no more than a prototype, which required manual intervention during normal operation. It succeeded Photo Mem, despite intensive efforts over several months not to take the equipment built at the New York Times durable in use.
Finally, photo -Mem ran out of money and the company was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1973, without ever having installed a fully functional device.
In the aftermath, there were court cases because investors the company's founders scam accused: this is focused mainly on the aspect that the prospectus contained the allegation that the company had a working prototype ( "Working Prototype " ) and stand at the beginning of the production, although apparently parts of the procedure were technically not yet been resolved.
Nevertheless, the company's products were a failure, they basically take some of the principles of today's optical media such as CD anticipate, CD or DVD -ROM changer ( Jukebox ) are today's equivalent of the former concept.