Data Disc

The company also manufactured specialized analog hard disk drives that stored video information for scientific organizations such as NASA as well as the television industry.

[4] Two former Ampex engineers, Fred Pfost and Kurt Machein, joined Data Disc in the mid-1960s; outside of work, they developed the VDR-210CF, a device that could record analog video signals onto a hard disk.

This allowed broadcasters to perform instant replays of sports events on the fly, with the ability to jog between frames, replay in slow motion, and pause on a still frame cleanly (the helical scanning heads of videotape decks usually could not perform such trick plays cleanly, and pausing could wear out the signal on the tape due to friction concentrated on one spot on the tape).

[11][12] Another application-specific version of their videodisc recorders allowed physicians to make rapid X-rays without film development wait times.

[14] Following a corporate reorganization caused by a sudden doubling of production volume, Miller resigned as president of Data Disc in April 1969, while remaining on the board of directors.

[16]: 103  Data Disc expanded with regional sales offices across the United States in November 1969,[17] and the company left Palo Alto for larger headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, in March 1971.

[25] One of his first acts as president was renaming Data Disc to Amcomp, Inc.,[26] in reflecting its focus away from disk drive units and toward other peripherals and complete computer systems.