Founded in 1973, Shugart Associates was purchased in 1977 by Xerox, which then exited the business in 1985 and 1986,[1] selling the brand name and the 8-inch floppy product line (in March 1986) to Narlinger Group,[2] which ultimately ceased operations circa 1991.

The original business plan was to build a small-business system (similar to the IBM 3740[3]) dealing with the development of various major components, including floppy disk drives and printers.

The board then wanted to focus on the floppy disk drive, but Shugart wished to continue the original plan.

[6] The drive became the basis of the disk system on the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I, Apple II, and many other early microcomputers.

Also in 1979, Shugart Associates introduced the SA-1000, a series of hard disk drives that kept as many mechanical, electrical and formatting similarities as possible with its floppy-drive counterparts.

In 1985, in order to resolve an inventory accumulation and as part of its exit strategy, Xerox gave up Shugart's exclusive rights to the Matsushita half-height 5+1⁄4-inch floppy drives.

This deformation would cause a change in the intensity of the reflected light from a laser reading the disk, thus providing a means of data storage.