Talk:Alan Shugart

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I reverted the recent major update to the Alan Shugart page because it appeared to me to be too full of errors and misstatements to be editied in any reasonalbe time period. The following are my comments on the major addition:
Alan Shugart is generally credited with inventing the floppy drive while working for IBM in the late 1960s.
NOT TRUE, usually credited to Dave Noble

  • The team that developed the floppy disk was headed by Noble at one point but his name is not on neither the patent for the drive nor the patent for the disk medium. Tom94022 (talk) 22:58, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In 1967, he headed the disk drive development team at IBM's San Jose lab,
NOT TRUE, he was never the lab manager, he was the Direct Access Product Manger

when and where the floppy drive was created. One of Shugart's senior engineers, David Noble, actually proposed the flexible media (then 8 inches in diameter) and the protective jacket with the fabric lining. Shugart left IBM in 1969, and took more than 100 IBM engineers with him to Memorex.
Mostly NOT TRUE, Herb Thompson is generally credited with the fabric lining; the count at Memorex is something like 40.

He was nicknamed "The Pied Piper" because of the loyalty exhibited by the many staff members who followed him. In 1973, he left Memorex, again taking with him a number of associates, and started Shugart Associates to develop and manufacture floppy drives.
NOT TRUE, as stated below, the plan was to build a small business system including many components such as the FD.

The floppy interface developed by Shugart is still the basis of all PC floppy drives. IBM used this interface in the PC, enabling them to use off-the-shelf third-party drives instead of custom building their own solutions.
Probably NOT TRUE, someone should research it, but it is likely that the SA800 interface is much like or the same as the IBM 33FD, the Memorex 650 or the IBM 23FD, all of which preceeded the SA800 at Shugart Associates

- Shugart wanted to incorporate processors and floppy drives into complete microcomputer systems at that time, but the financial backers of the new Shugart Associates wanted him to concentrate on floppy drives only. He quit (or was forced to quit) Shugart Associates in 1974, right before they introduced the mini-floppy (5 1/4-inch) diskette drive, which of course became the standard eventually used by personal computers, rapidly replacing the 8-inch drives.
Mostly TRUE

Shugart Associates also introduced the Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI), which was later renamed Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) when it was formally approved by the ANSI committee in 1986.
MISLEADING, SASI was long after Shugart left and he had nothing to do with it.

After being forced to leave, Shugart attempted to legally force Shugart Associates to remove his name from the company, but failed. The remnants of Shugart Associates still operates today as Shugart Corporation.
Partially TRUE, Shugart Corporation is probably defunct.

- For the next few years, Shugart took time off, ran a bar, and even dabbled in commercial fishing. In 1979, Finis Conner approached Shugart to create and market 5 1/4-inch hard disk drives. Together they founded Seagate Technology and by the end of 1979 had announced the ST-506 (6M unformatted, 5M formatted capacity) drive and interface.
Mostly TRUE

This drive is known as the father of all PC hard disk drives.
NOT TRUE, Can u cite a basis for the "father of all PC hard disk drives"

Seagate then introduced the ST-412 (12M unformatted, 10M formatted capacity) drive, which was adopted by IBM for the original XT in 1983. IBM was Seagate's largest customer for many years. Today, Seagate Technology is the largest disk drive manufacturer in the world.
Sort of TRUE, Seagate was one of three PC/XT suppliers, it is today the largest, particularly after it acquired Maxtor.

- When you stop to think about it, Alan Shugart has had a tremendous effect on the PC industry. He (or his companies) has created the floppy, hard disk, and SCSI drive and controller interfaces still used today. All PC floppy drives are still based on (and compatible with) the original Shugart designs. The ST-506/412 interface was the de facto hard disk interface standard for many years and served as the basis for the ESDI and IDE interfaces as well. Shugart also created the SCSI interface, used in both IBM and Apple systems today.
MOSTLY NOT TRUE While he was undoubtedly important to the industry, it is way over reaching to say Shugart invented hard disk drives (usually considered to be Rey Johnson), floppy disk drives (usually considered to be Dave Noble)or SCSI drives (not clear about drives, but SASI usually is credited to Larry Boucher). He was Product Manager when Noble invented the FDD, at Memorex his team introduced the first commerical FDD, at Shugart Associates his team introduced the first commercial 8" FDD and at Seagate Technology his team invented the first 5.25" HDD. This list is huge and sufficient without the over reaching.

- As a side note, in the late 80s Finis Conner left Seagate and founded Conner Peripherals, originally wholly owned and funded by Compaq. Conner became Compaq's exclusive drive supplier, and gradually began selling drives to other system manufacturers as well. Compaq eventually cut Conner Peripherals free, selling off most (if not all) of their ownership of the company. In late 1996, Seagate bought Conner Peripherals, and has fully incorporated all of the Conner products into the Seagate line.
TRUE --Tom94022 21:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Photographs of Shugart and Connor[edit]

http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=51&t=2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.126.237.225 (talk) 10:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shugart talk link dead[edit]

The link to the Shugart talk at http://corphist.computerhistory.org doesn't work. Mikedelsol (talk) 06:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed Tom94022 (talk) 06:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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