Memorex
In 1961, Laurence (Larry) Spitters founded Memorex Corporation in Santa Clara, California, along with three engineers from Ampex (Arnold T. Challman, Donald F. Eldridge, W. Lawrence Noon) in order to enter the precision magnetic tape market. Memorex was the first company to manufacture chromium dioxide cassettes in substantial volume. In addition, Memorex entered the computer systems business by first establishing its presence as a supplier of products that were plug compatible to IBM mainframe systems and then using its established sales and service capabilities to offer complete computer systems.
Memorex’s disk drive division, led by Alan Shugart, produced the Memorex 650 in 1972, the first read-write floppy disk drive. The Memorex 650 had a capacity of 175kB, with 50 tracks, 8 sectors per track, and 448 bytes per sector. While Memorex successfully competed in the IBM plug-compatible disk storage and communications products market, a series of extremely aggressive pricing and product actions by IBM attacked Memorex’s equipment businesses and resulted in lengthy antitrust litigation against IBM.
During the 1970s, Memorex also produced premium cassette tapes which were marketed vigorously through heavy television advertising. A consumer products division established in 1970 made Memorex a household name with the “Is it live or is it Memorex?” advertising campaign from the Leo Burnett agency which featured jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and a shattering wineglass (now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution).
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